


sweet raptured light

by someassemblingrequired



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (sort of), Abuse Aftermath, Angst, Brainwashing, Community: dragonage_kink, Denailing, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Graphic Description, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I'm very serious about the TORTURE tag, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, No Healing Cock, Past Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture, Very light ones though, anal penetration, dubious consent because they're both traumatised, having sex is not how you heal guys, mild Trespasser spoilers, mild endgame spoilers, passing references I suppose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-21 20:46:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12465628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someassemblingrequired/pseuds/someassemblingrequired
Summary: Inspired by this dragonage_kink prompt from October 2015"F!Inquisitor is captured by Venatori/Red Templars/demons/bandits/whatever and tortured. Graphically. Love Interest Cullen freaks out, comes to rescue her. Comfort ensues."PLEASE DO NOT DISREGARD THE WARNINGS, GUYS.----In the back of her mind, she carves her captors to pieces with her twin blades, laughing wildly as they finally speak to her, as they plead for mercy. Until then, she will snark at them. She will be fine.Max would not leave her to rot here. Dorian will not leave her to break here. Sera would not leave her to fall here.Cullen will not leave her to die here.





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> this got a lot darker than I anticipated, and isn't finished yet. enjoy, anyone who happens to find it. will be cross posted. The title comes from "My Last Breath," by Evanescence, which is definitely going to be a major influence here, but funnily enough, the song I listened to on repeat while writing this was "From Dusk til Dawn" by ZAYN & Sia... Go figure! 
> 
> things in this that might freak people out: sensory depravation, starvation, psychological torture, explicit abuse, denailing (removing of nails), thumbscrew torture, mental manipulation, healing for tortures purposes, brainwashing, allusions to sexual assault (there may be SOME, unsure), anal object penetration, whipping, hand and foot mutilation, abuse-aftermath, PTSD, night terrors, somatic illness, suicide attempts, and probably a few other things... 
> 
> I urge you to consider these before reading. Don't say I didn't warn you!

The fear doesn't set in until later.

She is all cool bravado and snarky japes, laughing in the faces of her captors, at first. They never respond, but this only seems to spur her on more, only encourages her to joke as she is dragged through rough corridors. They have taken her armour, her boots, even the thin strip of leather and coin she wears around her upper arm (“Take it with you,” he had muttered, pressing his lips to her hand, closed around the coin. “It’s brought me luck.”)

Everything will be fine, she tells herself, as they strip her of her small clothes, douse her in ice cold water, dry and dress her in a rough-hewn cotton shift and smalls that have seen better days. Her hair, long and bright like fire, (“My flame haired princess,” her mother had called her, stroking her temple as a small child. “My fiery, flame haired darling.”) is shorn off, leaving her with barely a knuckles length atop her head.

She is ashamed to say she nearly weeps at that. Nearly, as her locks fall to the ground. She does not struggle, knows it is not worth it (she wouldn’t make it to the door before one of the mages paralysed her, before one of the rogues caught up with her, before the hilt of a warrior’s sword came down on her temple), but her eyes burn with unshed tears. The laughter of her captors is grating on her heartstrings, on her still-foggy mind, but she ignores it in favour of, “I was needing a haircut! Thank you, Serah. Is a sovereign enough?”

(Her eye was swollen by the time she was dragged from that room, a gift from the man on her left.)

Still, though, the fear has not truly set in.

She is still making jokes, still teasing, as they throw her into the cell. “Homey, isn’t it? I could do with some cushions, though. Maybe a chaise in the corn— _oof,_ ” her banter is cut off by another backhand, and her head swims as she is dragged back to her feet, pressed against the wall, and the smart-ass comment on the tip of her tongue is stoppered by her inability to string words together. The metal they clap to her wrists is colder than her skin.

It’s not very comfortable. Her position, that is. Strung up by two thick lengths of chain, wrists chafing against rough silverite cuffs, is hardly favourable, but that is no matter; she will be out of here soon enough. In the back of her mind, she carves her captors to pieces with her twin blades, laughing wildly as they finally speak to her, as they plead for mercy. Until then, she will snark at them. She will be fine.

Max would not leave her to rot here. Dorian will not leave her to break here. Sera would not leave her to fall here. 

_Cullen_ will not leave her to die here.

And so, she counts the days, as best she can. It's not easy, because they do not bring her food or water at regular intervals, and the torches jammed into the fissures of her cell walls are either left burning all the time, or taken away for what feels like days. Excruciating brightness or absolute pitch. She cannot decide which she prefers. 

(Later, so much later, when the torch has been burning for so long she has lost count of everything, she tries to hide her eyes under her hair, only to recall that she has none. The realization, admist the pain of her position, makes her breath hitch, her chest heave, but she will not cry. She will not, she will not, she will _not_ cry.)

They never speak to her, and wear helmets that disguise any features. By the time they finally change her position, she is near numb, near ignorant of the blood trickling down her arms from the hours (has it only been hours? She can’t tell) of being wrenched, arms above her head, barely able to support her weight on her tip-toes. Her shoulders scream in agony as she is roughly shoved down from her standing position, her legs long ago having almost given up on supporting her weight. 

She winces, glowering blankly in the darkness, but there is no one else in the cell, and so the chains that bind her must be controlled from outside. She bites her lip at that, and winces slightly as the flesh cracks, dehydration settling into her like a second skin. She will be fine, she will be fine, she will be _fine_. The mantra carries her through the darkness.

The stone is cool against her legs, and she allows the bliss of relief to consume her for a split second before her limbs begin to burn, to scream, and she lets out a ragged breath. She has heard about this, of course—the blood that had spent so long in her legs redistributing itself, but she had not expected the burn to be quite so intense, like poison in her very veins. Her arms are completely immobile, she has realized, and as blood rushes into her fingers, she lets out a noise that she convinces herself is not a sob.

A fitful sleep overtakes her, only somewhat more restful than the last few attempts because she no longer jerks awake when her legs give out and she falls, now she is on the floor.

The burning does not subside.

* * *

They repeat the process.

* * *

The flames are bright in her eyes when a boot connects with her stomach. It hurts more than it would have before her capture-- she was lean muscle and a bit of soft padding then, but now she is gaunt and emaciated. She would not have realised how thin she had become, had her captors not held her down some days (was it days? Or hours? Minutes, or weeks?) ago to change the cuffs for smaller ones. Despite the food they have shoved down her throat (liquefied, but food nevertheless), she knows she is losing weight and mass.

(She had cursed them for that, her voice a rasp, barely managing to eek out a joke that she "nearly had it, guys! I almost slipped out!" 

That had earned her a hard, gauntleted fist to the face, and her face was still crusted with the blood that had gushed from her nose.)

As her eyes try to adjust to the horrible, awful brightness, she blanches, catching sight of her formerly lithe arms. Red patches ooze yellow and white pus beneath the manacles, blood caked around the visible bits of her wrists. She hasn’t seen her body since the last time they moved her, and has no desire to do so now. The shift they had forced her into on the first day is no longer as tight as it was.

The thought of how long she has been here scares her.

Max would not leave her behind, would he? She is his sister, his twin, his second, the one who had been with him when they escaped the Fade at Haven… She had not left him behind then, he would not leave her behind now.

_Would he?_

But Dorian, and Sera, and Bull, they would not abandon her to this fate; they are her friends, she is confident. (The louder she says it in her head, the weaker it sounds.) They would not leave her behind in this Maker-forsaken place, truly. Her mind must be playing tricks, she decides. She has only been here hours, not weeks. Not days.

A quiet voice worms its way into the back of her mind; _Max_ is the _true_ Inquisitor, the _true_ Herald of Andraste, not her, not she who simply pulled him through with her, into Haven. Max is the one who can close the rifts, who will defeat Corypheus, who has taken point in the War Room. It is Max who draws eyes when they enter a room, Evelyn a step behind him, quieter in comparison to his bright smile (but that is the way of rogues and warriors, she tries to remind herself; the voice does not agree).

At the Herald’s Rest, Max is the one who draws conversation, not her. Cullen entrusted _Max_ with the details of his forswearing lyrium, weeks before she walked in on him as he threw the philter across the room.

It has always been Max, she supposes, and her gut clenches. Max has always been first; in birth, in skill, in power, in _everything_. Who is she to assume that ‘their’ friends are not simply… _his_ friends? Who is she, if not Max Trevelyan’s smaller twin, his constant shadow?

The voice grows louder as the days grow longer, and she awakes one day with tears trickling down her face, and sobs echoing in the small cell.

Next time she wakes, it is to a pair of boots in front of her, and hands pulling her to her feet.

* * *

This is when the fear truly sets in.

They drag her (because her legs are no longer capable of supporting her weight, she knows this as well as they do, emaciated as she is) through unfamiliar corridors; she can hear screaming from behind the huge wooden doors that they pass, and it does not faze her. She is too far into the recesses of her own mind.

Her captors stop in front of one door in particular, and when it opens, her bleary eyes are confused by the sparkle of the floor. She is thrown to the floor, and immediately hears a noise not dissimilar to that of a wounded animal. Instinctively, she tries to look around for the source, before she realizes that noise has come from _her_. The pathetic mewls come from _her_ , as she feels sharp pricks all over her hands and knees and legs.

Shattered glass coats the floor, crunching as her captors move towards her again. The source, as far as she can tell, is the formerly proud window in the corner. Cold air whips through the room, and if she looks, she realizes she is in the Emprise du Lion. A shiver runs through her spine; they haven’t visited the Emprise in months, not since they set up camp near the broken bridge—Max had suggested they focus their efforts in the Wastes until the bridge was repaired. The doubts that have become a familiar weight in the back of her mind, buzzing to life as she realizes this is the last place anyone will look for her.

A boot connects with her ass, and she falls forward, her cheek scraping against stone and glass. Another pathetic mewl wrenches its way out of her traitorous throat.

“Move, bitch.”

She wants to weep, not with fear, but with _relief_. She has not heard a single voice since Max screamed, “ _Evelyn_!” before she awoke. Her own throat refuses to cooperate, her voice completely disused since she gave up taunting her invisible captors, the ones she barely ever saw. The boot connects with her again, sliding her forward, and, trembling, she attempts to push herself to her hands and knees. The tiny shards of glass slice into her as she moves forward, towards what looks to be a raised, tilted platform.

It is then that the fear truly sets in, the cold realization of what is about to happen curling in her stomach. She wants to scream, wants to flee, but she knows she is too weak, knows why they waited until now to bring her here.

They do not want information.

They want to make an example of her.

Her moan of fear is all it takes for her to be pulled up by the scruff of her shift, and tossed onto the platform. Fatigue in her muscles, she tries to fight, but weeks (has it been weeks?) without adequate nutrition and water, without exercise, with barely any movement, have left her weak as a newborn kitten, and all she gets for her trouble is her short hair (it has grown enough that her captor can catch a handful in his fist) snatched, her head slammed back into the table. It is enough to disorient her as they shove her wrists and ankles into manacles that are bolted to the surface beneath her.

Through her tear-blurred eyes, she sees a new person enter the room, someone without a helmet or the armour she has come to associate with her captors. He looks, she thinks, almost normal, almost like the old caretaker who had cleaned up skinned knees and banged elbows when she and Maxwell were children in Ostwick.

That illusion is shattered quickly as he opens a previously ignored box on a table beside her, and she frowns at the long, thin strips of sylvainwood. They look like they have been sharpened, flattened, and she wonders what they could be used for.

She does not have to wait long to find out.

* * *

Her screams are echoing in the chamber, falling out the shattered window, as the first wedge of wood is forced beneath her toenail. It burns, burns, _burns_ , and she cannot stop the haggard howl that wrenches itself from her throat. The kindly man simply smiles at her, his eyes dead and dark and twinkling, as he withdraws a wooden mallet from the box.

“P—p—pl— _please_ ,” she tries to say, tries to pull her foot away as he sits down on a stool he has pulled from the far corner of the room. Her voice cracks and scratches and does not sound like hers at all. She is surprised it works at all. “ _N—n—no.”_ He smiles serenely at her, and slams the hammer into the wedge.  
Her nail tears, and she howls, and he hits it again, and again, until the nail has rent itself away from her skin, and she is bleeding and struggling, tears streaming down her face.

She has been trained for torture, for abuse, but this is too much over too long, no one can be trained for this, surely not, and she has lost track of days, of weeks, of years, she has been here for her entire life she is sure of it and she cannot breathe, cannot breathe, as he smoothly removes the flat of the wedged stick and places it underneath the next nail.

And the next.

And the next.

And the _next_.

* * *

When she comes close to blacking out from the pain, a restorative potion is forced down her throat. But it is not a normal one, she knows; she can’t taste the familiar tang that heals her wounds, just the energy boost that keeps her going. A broken sob pulls from between her teeth, as she realizes they intend to force her awake for this process. They will not even grant her the sweet release of unconsciousness.

Through the haze of pain, she hears the kindly man (and how can she keep thinking of him like that, she wonders, until he smiles serenely at her again, and that smile is the only piece of kindness she has seen in so long, and she is desperate for him to smile at her one more time, please, Serah, just smile again, and she realizes belatedly that she is babbling, sobbing, throat raw from screams and disuse, and there is some laughter swimming around her head) speak to another, something about spices, and peppers, and Antiva, and with his move to her right foot, she feels a hot, burning pain not only beneath her nail, but in her very veins.

“A powder of my own creation, darling,” comes the rasp of the Kindly Man, and her head lolls to the side as the burning travels up her leg with every pump of her heart. “The powdered chilies my countrymen so adore in their meals certainly spice up my work.” Through her half lidded eyes, she sees him dip the blood-crusted sylvainwood in a container of red spice, and she near enough vomits in her own mouth (it is only bile, though, and she gags again as it stings her throat and mouth) as he hammers it into her toe, the spices mixing into her blood, into her body.

She is distantly aware that she is screaming names, now, begging, pleading, sobbing for someone, _anyone_ to help her. She cries out to the Maker, to his beloved Bride, to the Creators that Sera ignores and Solas is so scornful of; she screams Max’s name, pleads with Cullen to put an end to it all, howls for Dorian to rescue her.

No one comes, and the Kindly Man removes her 8th nail, and the world flashes black and fuzzy around the edges, and even the bucket of ice water poured over her head cannot keep her afloat as her consciousness retreats.

* * *

She is screaming, still, when she comes back to herself, howling in agony as something hard, harder than that horrific wooden mallet, makes contact with her already abused feet. Were she able to form coherent thought, she would realise it was a small maul, breaking her bones into pieces, twisting her toes and her feet, but she cannot think past the recognition of pain, hot, white, blinding pain, and the burning of another potion being forced down her throat.

Dimly, she realizes her fingers are in agony, and with a herculean effort, she twists her neck to see that her hands are both mangled beyond repair, the fingers bent in positions that should not be possible, the nails of a few hanging by threads. The blood is dry, cracking, parts of it scabbing, and it looks as though it has been there for days. She cannot recall how long she has been here. The Kindly Man laughs at her bewildered, agonized expression. “You may not remember that,” he says, a smile in his voice. “You were quite beside yourself. Truly inappropriate behavior for a woman of your station, Lady Inquisitor… Ah, Lady Trevelyan, I mean. They did tell me that your title had been rescinded following your assertion that Corypheus was the one true God.”

Bewildered is all that can explain her twirling thoughts. “I—,” her voice catches. “The Maker—He…” but her voice fails her, for if there truly is a Maker, would He allow one of his children (even one who is not as devout as her family would prefer?) suffer in such agony without any relief? The Kindly Man pats her hand and sends a fresh wave of nausea through her. “Of course, _I_ know you meant it, but my friends here,” he gestures around, “need assurances of your faith in the Elder One before we can let you go. You came to _us_ , Evelyn, don’t you remember?”

She doesn’t.

She shakes her head limply, mouth lolling open as she takes great, heaving, pained breaths, trying to think through the fire in her body. She does not remember that. She does not remember much of anything, now. There is only pain, pain, and the words of the Elder One repeated by the men in the corners of the room as she wails.

“You were so tired, dearest one. Tired of being in your brothers shadow, tired of being controlled by your parents, the Chantry, that silly _Inquisition,_ ” he reminds her, and yes, that sounds right, sort of? She cannot remember the control, she cannot remember anything. She cannot… she _cannot_ … it hurts, and she lets out a broken sob, her breath wheezing and rattling in her chest. It hurts to breathe. “You came to me, Evie, and asked for help, don’t you remember? It was Maxwell’s fault, he stole the Elder One’s anchor, he stole the destiny that should have been _yours_ ,” and the affectionate nickname makes her want to rub against him like a cat, desperate for some semblance of warmth and caring in this room.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, brushing his wrinkled hand against her cheek. “We’ll take good care of you, Evie. Don’t worry.” And then she screams again as a maul comes down on her forearm, and oh Maker, oh _Maker_ , oh _Corypheus_ , it hurts, it hurts too much, so much, toomuch _too_ much _toomuch_ , she cannot handle it, and she is sobbing, praying to anyone who will listen, begging for release, as her bones splinter.

* * *

The agony is unending, as her hands are cuffed before her. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for there to be _more_ pain, but as they force her bloody thumbs into a small, metal trap, she finds that she is so very, very wrong. Could she struggle, she would have, but the smallest movement sends pain through her body like ripples of electricity, like being singed by one of Dorian’s chains of lightning.

She begins to wish she _had_ struggled, though, when they begin to twist a nut at the top of the trap, and it presses down, forcing her thumbs between two bars of silverite. She bites her tongue, feels a gush of blood, _screams_.

She feels them shatter before the crack fills the room, near drowned by her throat-tearing screams of… of everything. Her mind is becoming numb as she stares, agonized, at the ceiling, trying to count the stones above her, the cracks, the pieces of moss, _anything_ to stop focusing on the blinding pain as _crack, crack, crack_ her bones betray her again, and fall to pieces.

One. Two. Three. Is that crack in her hands, or the ceiling? Her eyes are blurred with tears, but her own screams are quieter as she falls into the deepest recess of her mind, her own subconscious desperate to protect her fracturing mind. Seven cracks directly above her. Seven, and seven, and seven again on either side, and seven again is 28 cracks in her vision, in her ears, and she finds herself praying to… to… to who? To someone, to some _thing_ to take away the mortar holding the cracks in place, to let them fall upon her.

Seven, and seven, and seven again, she counts every crack, every piece of moss, every distant scream, until her vision becomes foggy, and the effort of holding her head straight, looking above, is too much, much too much. It lolls to the side, and she tries to focus on the stars outside, but there are more than seven and seven and seven and she cannot, she _cannot_ and that in itself is a worse torture than the agony of the brand they are now applying to her collarbone.

The stench of burning flesh brings her back, and she tries to count again.

She loses track at six. Then at four. She wails hopelessly, her voice raw and barely louder than a whisper, throat too damaged from days, weeks, _months_ (has it been months? It feels as though she has been here forever, she can barely remember a time where she was not here, not this, not Evie, initiate of Corypheus) of constant screams.

* * *

She is in a different position next time she wakes, and she cannot remember how long she has been asleep. Her fingers are gnarled, but they no longer scream as they had the last few times she has been wrenched from sleep. The chamber, the one she has not left since the day they threw her into the glass shards, is dark, only lit by the faint trickle of moonlight, and she shifts slightly.

That is a mistake.

A jolt goes through her, between her legs, and she whines in discomfort, eyes trying desperately to open, eyelashes stuck together by something tacky and crusty. When she finally blinks herself to vision, she is higher up than she was last time, and she becomes aware of a harness around her waist. Her legs are strapped to the sides of whatever is beneath her, but she dares not look for fear of the same agony lancing through her body. Something, though, is pressing uncomfortably into her…

Her cheeks light up with a red flush as she realizes exactly _where_ the discomfort in her body (aside from the dull ache of her broken bones, her missing nails, her swollen temple… the list goes on, but she has neither the capacity nor desire to catalogue her injuries in the brief moment of lucidity) comes from. Before she has any more time to reorient herself, to try to adjust to the new position, the door creaks, and a group enters, the Kindly Man amongst them.

“Ah, you’ve awoken, princess!” He smiles, and something in the pit of her stomach flutters as her heart swells, pleasure rising as she realizes that she has done something right, and maybe that means he’ll let her down, maybe she’ll get to sleep on the ground, maybe she won’t have to feel… whatever this is… but his eyes tell her otherwise.

“Normally,” he starts, “I don’t use this. Maferath’s Cradle is such ugly business, but…” He waves his hand dismissively. “The Commander,” and her stomach clenches at that, a name she cannot recall fluttering through her mind like a butterfly, “insists that his men have _some_ fun.” She frowns, tilting her head to the side, trying to understand what that means, as the men beside him begin to shuck their skirtmail.

A white, hot lance of fear shoots through Evelyn’s core, and she begins to writhe, desperate to get down from this stand. And she shrieks, then, as the _thing_ pressing against her bottom pierces the little hole she has never even considered touching in such a manner. Her sobs come immediately as she tries to push away from it, only managing to impale herself further on it, and there are jeers from the group as something wet trickles between her cheeks. _Blood_ , she thinks, fear lighting up injuries like wildfire.

“Don’t fret, Evie. A lady such as yourself must remain unblemished, even in the eyes of the Elder One,” and she near enough sags at that, her virtue remaining intact somehow more important than she had ever thought possible. “But that does not mean you do not have your uses for our lovely gentleman friends!” He raises his arms wide, and smiles as the men move towards her, helmets still obscuring their faces. She lets out a terrified wail, but dares not move as they caress the legs bound up, holding her above the pyramid (because she _has_ heard of Mafereth’s Cradle, the obscene pyramid that Ancient Tevinters had used to torture slaves and spies; she’s heard of it… somewhere, she is sure. Somewhere, sometime, in that non-descript past that she has all but forgotten), and running their hands over the bloody material of her shift, slipping them beneath to paw at her breasts.

She sobs openly as the first one removes his cock from his breeches, rubbing it to life as he pulls his fingers through her hair. “Such a pretty thing,” comes the Nevaraan accent from beneath the helm. “Didn’t think you’d be this pretty, bitch. You sure weren’t pretty when you killed my brother.” And he slaps her, her head jerking to the side, and laughs, and laughs, and _laughs,_ as he jerks his cock. “I’m going to cover you with my seed,” he spits, grabbing roughly at her breast as another man lifts her slightly to rub something cold and slimy (grease, maybe? She can’t tell) against her… against her ass, before he pushes her roughly back onto the tip of the pyramid.

Evelyn can’t help it; she howls, agony smashing through her like an ogre through a wall. Hot, shameful tears drip from her eyes, from her nose, and she sobs as the rest of the group of men begin to rub their hands against her, rub their cocks, as they take her bound hands and use her to jerk themselves off.

She feels filthy, vile, whorish. Aside from the sweet kisses and awkward fumblings with… with… someone… someone, somewhere, she is sure, she cannot recall ever being touched in such a manner, ever touching in such a way. “I’m sorry,” she howls, trying desperately to move away from the grabbing hands, from the impaling point, from the lecherous stares. “I’m _sorry_ , I’m sorry, I was wrong. Please, Messere, please,” she fixes the man who had spoken with a pleading stare. “I’m sorry, Messere, I was wrong to hurt your brother.”

He hits her again.

“You _murdered_ him, filthy whore. And if I had my way, I’d force my way into that pretty cunt, and fuck that pretty little ass, until I broke your fucking neck,” and his hand moved towards her throat and she screams, and screams, and screams, as hot spurts of _something_ hit her shift, her legs, her arms. “And then, I’d fuck your whorish body afterwards, and let everyone in the fucking _keep_ take a turn between your—“

“That’s quite enough,” comes a sharp voice.

Evelyn is not certain she has ever been more glad to hear a voice in her life. The men groan, grumbling, a few shooting the angry soldier heated glares, as they tuck their spent cocks away into their breaches, refastening their skirtmail, and exiting the room. From her position atop the pyramid, Evelyn sobs brokenly, the man’s words playing back in her mind, repeating over and over, and she cannot help but picture him above her as he acts out his story. As hands began to lift her off of the Cradle, she lets out a fresh wail, congealed blood making it difficult to dislodge her.

Her head spins as she’s lifted down, and she knows it cannot possibly be the Kindly Man who is carrying her back to the blood-splattered table she has spent so long affixed to—surely it hadn’t been _that_ bloody when she had first seen it? But… can that truly all be _her_ blood? Her stomach churns and her head spins as the world begins to fade, coming in flashes of words and snippets of pictures. Distantly, she feels something cold being applied to her backside, and tries failingly to pull herself away, tender and torn as she is. Her eyes burn with tears, but no more will fall, so she simply heaves dry sobs as a salve is applied within her.

“Hush now,” comes an unfamiliar voice, brushing hair from her eyes. (When had it gotten so long? It’s near enough to her eyes now, and she cannot recall it being that long… when has it ever been so long?) “That will not happen again, sweet one, so long as you are good.” She nods sleepily, body aching, desperate to please this new, kind stranger, who helps tip a potion down her throat. Her limbs tingle and burn, oh _Corypheus,_ it hurts, it _hurts,_ and she looks at the helmed man helping her.

“Please,” she whispers, voice raw. “Please, n-n-no more.”

The man simply shakes his head, and locks her wrists back into their manacles.

* * *

  
Sometime after the Cradle, they begin to allow her to sit on a chair instead of lay on the table. She thinks it is because they know she will not fight. She asked for this, after all, so why would she resist their doing? It is for the good of the Elder One, for his benefit; she knows, because the Kindly Man told her.

“The Elder One has great plans for you, little one,” he cooed one evening (she knows it was evening because they had given her a thin cloak to wrap around her bony shoulders, because the sky was dark and the light coming through the shattered window was pale and not golden, not fiery). “You will be the best of us, little princess, don’t worry. We will take care of you.” 

That, she supposes, makes all the difference. She cannot remember a time when someone took _care_ of her; she has been in this chamber all her life, has been at their disposal all her life, and when they tell her she is good, that she is the _best_ of them, it brings her joy unparalleled. 

And she thanks him as he takes the cat to her back, thanks him again as he pours his favourite spice mixture into the open wounds, thanks him again as she screams in agony and pleads for more, so that she may please him.

In the back of her mind, she feels a pull, but ignores it; the Kindly Man says it is normal enough for initiates, and she is doing _so_ well. He tells her this as he hits her hands with the hammer again, breaking her fingers anew, and she weeps, weeps, _weeps_ , and thanks him.


	2. part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an interlude.

Evelyn has been missing for six months when Max finally loses himself to his rage—their split quarters, above the rest of Skyhold, have been mostly untouched, with Max preferring to bunk in with Dorian, or Bull, or Cole, or Sera, or _literally anyone_ in Skyhold. He cannot bring himself to look in the room they worked on together, the way they split the raised section into a little hideaway for her bed, for her clothes, or the way they fit a bed for him into a section that she, Dorian, and that kind dwarven stonemason had built by hand. Rooms within rooms, she had said, laughing and smiling, as she showed him.

It had been like being children again, living in the same room, laughing at the odd sleeping habits of the other, but Dorian’s spells had ensured that if Max had a— _guest_ over, Evelyn could sleep uninterrupted. And being in that room without her felt… felt _wrong._

His sword came down hard against the practice dummy he had set up in the center of the room that afternoon, and a moment later, he swore as it crashed through the stained glass doors and toppled off of the balcony. The tinkle of broken glass only served to remind him of his childhood, of Evelyn covering for him after they smashed a vase, or a tiny trinket that Father had brought back from his travels for Mother. Blood rushed to his head and he roared, sword swinging wildly at the curtains she had picked, the desks they shared, the books they had curated together.

Blood pounded in his ears as he swung, aimless and angry, screaming the entire time.

She was his _sister_. His _twin_. His little sister. He was meant to _protect_ her, and he had failed in the simplest task. He had worked tirelessly their _entire_ lives to look out for her, to protect her, sword and shield, while she watched his back, kept them both safe from the secrets lurking in the shadows that he, foolhardy and (at times) arrogant, was like to miss. And instead she had been taken right in front of his eyes.

_“EVELYN!”_

_It had been a normal afternoon in the Wastes, and perhaps that was why it had come as such a surprise when the Red Templars leapt out at them. With Dorian, Sera, Bull, and Evelyn, Max knew that they would have little-to-no trouble dispatching the errant group, and sent a smirk towards his slight, feminine twin. She returned it before disappearing in a puff of smoke, and with a roar, he launched into action, sword cutting through the first man like paper._

_The rest, of course, was not nearly so easy, and he swore as he found himself off balance, fighting in the sloping sands against a Behemoth. He cursed, surging forward, trying to catch the little shit off guard, but only succeeded in nicking the monstreous amalgamation of flesh and lyrium. He fumbled in his belt and tossed one of Sera’s Jar of Bees behind him, praying to the Maker that his grenade had found its target as he whipped around the face the demon-cum-man._

_It was while he was cutting down the Behemoth that he realized he had not seen his fleet-footed sister near him for some time, and his heart doubled its pace immediately;_ Evelyn. _He sunk his sword through the creature’s abdomen, and pushed it off with one greave-clad foot, giving the thing a final kick to ensure it was dead before turning back to the battle, eyes scanning frantically for his twin._

_Dorian was several yards away, weaving complex motions with his staff as Sera seemed to move at the speed of light, her bow flashing in every part of the field seemingly all at once. Bull, Max knew, was having the time of his life, whirling through the Templars as though they were practice dummies. But no sign of Evie. As Dorian cast a final fire glyph and Bull knocked another Behemoth into it, he heard a shriek._

_He whipped around and howled, sword raised as he launched himself in the direction of his sister, his sister, whose eyes were wide and terrified as a cloth descended over her mouth, a poisoned wound dripping on her upper arm. He watched as she succumbed to what he assumed was a sleeping potion, her body going limp in the arms of the mage behind her, and then, as he howled her name, she was gone, and so was the mage._

He has failed her in the most basic of ways.

And then his swinging sword was frozen, as if by magic. His eyes narrow as cold permeated his hands, and not the standard cold of the Skyhold winds. His fingers were chilled, his sword frozen, and he swore as he dropped it, the cold heat of the ice burning his palms.

“Fuck you, Dorian,” he spits, not turning to face the mage he knew would be standing on the steps. He kicked the useless, frozen sword to the corner of the room, and scowled.

“I’m afraid you’ve already done that once today, _amatus_ ,” comes the congenial reply, the Tevinter gliding into the room proper without the slightest bit of concern for propriety. Max almost snorts. Pah, what did he care for propriety? Both he and Evie knew that the only true-born heirs to the Trevelyan family would come from her, propriety be _damned._

“… noted,” grumbed the Inquisitor, and with a heavy sigh, he felt the rage, and the anger, and everything but true grief, fall away from him. His shoulders slumped, and he felt Dorian’s presence before his hand, felt the slighter man catch him slightly and lead him haltingly towards the Avaar lounge chair that Evelyn had insisted upon after their return from the Frostback Basin. ( _“It’s so comfortable, Max! Look!”_ )

“Six months,” he whispers, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes and taking a shuddering breath. “Six months, and we haven’t the faintest clue where she is, or _why_ they took her.” His shoulders shake with the effort to contain his sobs, but it was for naught as a gasping sob broke forth.

And once it had begun, there was no stopping it. He had not stopped, had not wept, had done nothing but fight and fuck and scream at scouts, at Leliana, and Josephine, at Cullen and Blackwall, at Harding and the Chargers, since Evie had vanished without a trace. Dorian pressed a hand to the small of his back, and Max wept. Tears roll down his cheeks, his breath coming in jerky gasps as he tried, in vain, to gain a semblance of control over his behavior. Dorian simply tuts and unbuttons the leathers over his chest.

“Wha—“ Max frowns through his tears, trying to understand, before Dorian fixes him with a sardonic smile. “I’m hardly going to allow you to sully my leathers with your Marcher tears, am I, _amatus_? They may _stain_!” The slight jest was enough to allow Max to relax into Dorian’s arms, and, given a moment, turn into his embrace, sobbing openly into the chest of the man he loved so fervently.

“I need her home,” he whispers. Dorian simply sighed and brushed a hand over the dark auburn curls atop Max’s head, slightly darker than his twins.

“I know, _amatus_. I know.”

They sat there, silent but for the howl of the wind through the broken doors and Max’s quiet sobs, for what felt like an eternity. The quiet comfort was broken only by the sudden slamming open of the door at the bottom of the steps. Both men jumped apart, Dorian wrenching his leathers back on as quickly as possible, while Max leapt up, looking, almost furiously, at the intruder.

_Jim._

He frowned, remembering from Evelyn that Jim had interrupted her first… hand-holding experience with the Commander on the battlements, and fixed the young man with what Varric had referred to as, ‘the Inquisitor Stare.’

“Can I _help_ you, Scout?”

“Ah—,” the scout looked from Max, to Dorian, and back to Max, before gulping and stepping forward, offering a piece of paper forward as though Max may leap out and bite him. “Your Worship, a note from the Spymaster—they’re waiting for you in the War Room, ah…”

“And they had you interrupt my private time for this, why?” Hissed Max, his voice a low growl.

“It’s—it’s the Inquisitor, Ser.. They’ve… They know where she is.”

Blood rushed to his head, to his ears, and then Jim was on the floor and Max was halfway down the stairs to the Great Hall before he had even completely processed what had been said.

_Evie._

* * *

The War Room is unnaturally silent as Max enters. Morrigan makes no move to snark at him, Leliana does not launch into a discussion of the latest reports, Josephine looks drawn and her candle has worn to the wick without her notice. But it is Cullen upon whom Max focuses, the only other man in the world who realizes what Max has lost with Evie.

“We’re bringing her home,” he grounds out, a sense of finality in his voice. His hands press onto the carved table, and he watches as Cullen steadies himself, beads of sweat forming along his temples. The lyrium withdrawal must be worse with the added stress of Evie’s kidnapping, and Max is ashamed to admit to himself he hasn’t checked in on his friend often enough, too consumed in his own rage, his own grief.

“The scouts report an increased movement near Suliden’s Keep in the last six months, coinciding with when the other Inquisitor was taken,” begins Leliana, motioning to a stack of papers near her. “Our man on the inside sent word last week that there were to be… preparations, for a particular prisoner. He has since confirmed that this prisoner is Evelyn Trevelyan. Her condition is…” At this, Leliana curls her lip and the briefest flash of something Max cannot identify crosses her face. “Unknown, at present.”

“She’s alive, though?” Cullen sounds as though he won’t believe it until it’s spelled out for him, and Maxwell is a strong enough man to admit he feels the same way. They turn towards Leliana, apprehension evident in their stares.

“At last report, yes, she yet lives.”

“We go now.”

Morrigan, Josephine, and Leliana all jerk their heads towards Cullen, mouths near agape. It is unlike their steely Commander to suggest something so foolhardy, and yet… Max cannot blame him. 

In fact, he agrees.

“Cullen, Bull, Dorian, Vivienne, Cole, Solas, and I will form an advance party,” he begins, fixing Leliana with a hard stare that brokers no room for argument. She grants him a delicate nod of assent. It is a large team, but he knows he will need every single one of them for this mission. “We will leave as soon as we are able. Send a raven to the Emprise camps; we will be launching an all-out assault to take Suledin’s Keep from the Red Templars. Do not inform anyone of Evelyn’s presence—we do not need to show our hand too soon.”

His voice is strained, the effort of separating his own personal mission from the planning of a siege more strenuous than he would have previously thought possible.

The advisors nod their assent, and by the end of the hour, a plan is in place.

Evelyn Trevelyan is coming home.

* * * 


	3. part 3

The instant Evelyn awakes, she knows something is wrong. Her bones are twisted at all the wrong angles, her vision topsy-turvy. She has not been strapped to the table in so long, long enough that it seems a full Age has passed. She struggles, pain shooting through her, as it so often does. Her skin feels sticky, slick with drying blood, and she whines quietly. 

Her eyes are swollen, and it’s hard to see, but she makes out a movement from the corner of the room and whimpers again. The Kindly Man will explain everything, she’s certain of it. She’s been _so_ good as of late; she has not kicked out during sessions, has never spoken back, she has been a paragon of an Initiate, and still, here she remains, strapped to the table. Her mind swims, as it has her entire life, every experience somewhat foggy.

“Our time together is coming to an end, little Evie,” comes a familiar voice, and she attempts to turn herself towards it. The Kindly Man is sharpening a blade (her ears pick up the scratching, and she does not know _why_ , but she simply knows that is what he is doing) and moving around potion bottles. He has never done this before. She wonders why he does it now, and then remembers it is not her place to question. 

“Why… why?” She stumbles over the word, voice raw. Tears prickle her eyes, and a rogue sniffle escapes her. “I… I’ve been good,” she whines, straining at the buckles. “I promise, Messere, I am His obedient servant.” A soft laugh echoes from where the Kindly Man sits, just out of her line of sight. 

“I know,” he murmurs. “For I have recreated you, Evelyn Trevelyan. I have molded you into the ideal form for his taking. But, alas,” there is a flutter as he shifts, his robes swishing. “There are other plans for you, my darling girl.” A hand presses itself to her hair, nearing her chin now, and she tries desperately to lean into the touch. It is pulled away before she can feel more than the barest brush of warmth.

“You have served Him so well, sweet thing, my good girl.” She preens, as best as she is able, swollen eyes still bright at his praise. If her jaw was not broken, she would smile brightly, but as it is, talking is only barely manageable. She barely feels the pain, though, the fogginess in her brain barely allowing her to register it. “And because of that, I have a gift for you.”

She feels, rather than sees, him come into her line of sight, his robes brushing against her arms. The open wounds, the scabbing flay-lines, weep as they catch on rogue threads and are tugged against her paper-thin skin. She ignores the pain, and he simply brushes aside the scabbing with a disgusted noise. That hurts more, that he rejects her, that she is too filthy to be touched by someone as kind and lovely as he, but he has promised her a gift and she will not be ungrateful.

A coin is held up before her, and she squints at it. There is a face carved into the dull silver, one that almost looks like the Cursed Andraste, bride of the False God, the False Maker-- she remembers this face from when the Kindly Man and his silent accomplice had taught her of Corypheus, of his power, of how he entered the supposed Holy City and found nothing. Corypheus is the One True Power, the One True God, and she knows this is true. So why do they give her a symbol of all they oppose?

“To remind you of the evils in the girl, little one,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb over the coin. He flips it to show a poorly soldered clasp with a piece of fine leather running across it. It is clearly intended to be worn, and he affixes it to her upper arm. She tries her best not to wince as it cuts into her already-pained skin. “This is a symbol of your loyalty to us now,” and she realises, as she reflects on the coin, that it has clearly been altered, a pair of dragons interwined with one another engraved into the Damned Andraste’s depiction. The symbol of her captors, she assumes, or perhaps the symbol of the Elder One himself. She keens, proud to wear his symbol upon her. 

“Thank, thank you,” she stutters, eyes burning as incense begins to burn nearby. The Kindly Man smiles at her, and again places his hand on her head. He does not remove it this time. “You will not see me again,” he says to her, and before she can weep at it, he shakes his head. “It is time for you to leave us, my good, little girl. You have done so well, _so_ well. And…” he hesitates.

“This will hurt.”

Her mouth is forced open by someone behind the table, and a potion is poured down her throat. The fog that has been ever-present in her mind begins to clear, and pain lances through her entire body. 

Suddenly, she can feel every broken bone, every splintered fracture, every nail-less extremity. She howls, feeling burning in her blood, and thrashes, and this only hurts more. She screams, and screams, and _screams_ as whatever potion was fogging her mind before is washed away by this new one, and in her agony, she only feels herself being unclasped from the table a moment before she is thrown roughly to the floor.

A foot connects with her midsection and she screams again, feeling barely healed ribs shatter under the force. Another comes down on her knees, on her arms, and, through swollen eyes, she has naught but a moment to realise that there is one coming for her face. Her nose screams as the boot connects with it, and… and…

She knows no more.

* * * 

The Fade is a strange place, she muses, sitting quietly atop an ethereal recreation of the table she has spent many nights upon. It is nice, though, to awake without pain, without worry, but she surmises she has never truly felt these things. All she has felt before, in the Waking World, has been for the service of her Master, of the True God, and she does not consider it a hardship anymore.

Unless, _this_ is reality?, and reality is simply the Fade? 

Her head hurts too much to consider such notions. She cannot remember what she was doing before she entered the Fade world, mind too foggy with the scents of the outside to linger too long upon it. She rarely enters the Fade as it is, and to do so is a nicety she should not allow herself. She is prepared to fall asleep within her own dreams, within her own mind, when a voice she does not recognise comes from the doorway.

“ _Da’len_ ,” is what comes from the pale man in the doorway. He is unlike anyone Evelyn has seen in her time in her chamber, with his pointed ears and bald scalp. He is not wearing armour, and the Fade seems to be pulled towards him, affectionate in its brushes. He is strange, and Evie does not like it. “Oh, _da’len_.” He sounds sorrowful, and moves towards her. 

She backs away, eyes flitting from one part of the dream room to another, looking for something to push back this intruder. He holds up his hands, making no further movements towards her. She exhaled. “What are you? Spirit, or demon?”

“Neither, _da’len_. Do you not recognise me?” His brow furrows in confusion, and his head tilts ever so slightly. There is a tug at the back of her mind, but she pushes it away as the Kindly Man has taught her to. She shakes her head, eyes widening. If he is neither spirit nor demon, what is he?

“Begone,” she whispers, pressing back against the wall. She does not like this unfamiliar elf, this man who has interrupted her quiet time in the Fade. She wants to pray, to call to Corypheus to protect her instead. 

“Elder One,” her voice cracks. “Corypheus, I beseech you… protect your initiate, for the Fade is full of those who seek… Who seek…” She cannot be sure what this unknown entity seeks, and instead she simply shakes her head as the Elf makes to move towards her, face stricken.

“Coryphe--- _Inquisitor_ ,” his voice is more urgent now, as he calls her a name she does not remember. “It is Solas, Evelyn. Do you not remember? Haven? The Breach?” She shakes her head more vigorously, and again, she commands him to begone. She hears him say something in that same, strange language, before he comes towards her. She shrieks, but pressed against the wall, there is no where else for her to go. His hands come down on her shoulders. 

“We are coming, _da’len. Ir abelas,_ I hope we are not too late…” He trails off, something unfamiliar in his eyes, and she shivers away from his touch. “ _Hamin_ ,” though she does not know the word, it holds the same commanding tone as the words the Kindly Man utters, and she wants to acquiese. “Rest, Evelyn. We are coming.”

And then he is gone, and Evelyn is alone once more.

* * * 

It has been over a month since they gathered around the War Room table, and Max feels that as keenly as he feels the ice forming in his boots. He curses the snow, curses the broken roads, curses every last thing that has turned a two-week journey to the Emprise du Lion into a month long trek. But it is no matter, they are here now, and Evie will be home soon.

The fresh snow cracks beneath his boots, and Max struggles to keep his breathing even, even, _even_ and not angry, not frustrated. It is not the fault of his team that they chose today to move on Suledin’s Keep, not the fault of his advisors that fresh snow coats his armour even now, as they stand around the makeshift war table, preparing their siege. 

They wait now for Solas, who, at last word, had been once more traversing the Fade in an attempt to connect with Evelyn; that he had been unable to contact her for the past seven months went unspoken. Max did not desire to dwell upon what it meant when someone disappeared from the Fade, as he had told Dorian many, _many_ moons previously. 

_”I don’t_ care _what it supposed to mean, Dorian!” His voice echoed off the closed glass doors, and he spun to glare at his lover. The Tevinter paused, hands raised in the universal, ‘I come in peace,’ position._

_“_ Amatus _, when a dreamer cannot find someone in the Fade, it… It generally means that person is no longer… capable of dreaming.” Dorian’s voice was careful, each word weighed and considered before spoken, a true altus to the bone. Briefly, Max had thought how positively_ brilliant _Dorian would be once his father died, once Dorian was able to take up his mantle as Magister Pavus. But those were pushed away, anger flaring up at the insinuation that Evelyn was dead._

_“I would know,” he hissed, shaking his head violently. “She is my twin, Dorian. My best friend. I would_ know _if Evelyn was… If she was… If…” His words interrupted by a choking sob, but he put his hand up to dissuade Dorian from attempting to take the other man into his arms. “She… She is not… She is not_ dead _, Dorian. I am certain of it.”_

_He would not believe it, ever. Not until he felt it in his bones, until he saw her body laid out before him; not before he had spoken her last rites, had burned her as was customary in their family. He would not believe it until he had weaved embrium flower wreaths for his children out of the flowers that sprung from the ground her ashes covered. He would not believe it until he saw her in the afterlife himself, once his own life’s light was extinguished._

A hand on his shoulder brings Max back to the present, and he blinks. Solas is standing across the table, and the rest of the team have joined him in Max’s brief lapse of focus. He goes to speak, but the stony expression on Solas’ face causes him to falter. The other lets out a sigh, and presses his hands to the table. 

“I… was able to make contact with Evelyn, within the Fade.”

“That’s fantastic!” Max is jubilant, a true, breath-taking smile breaking over his face for the first time in months. But it is dimmed when Solas shakes his head and continues, “However, she… was unaware of who I was, or even _what_ I was, despite the fact that she has traversed the dreamscape with me many times.”

“What… What does that mean?” 

He is almost afraid to hear the answer.

“I am afraid… Inquisitor Maxwell, I am sorry, but I fear the Inquisitor Evelyn we lost may not be the Inquisitor Evelyn that we find.” 

Max’s knees buckle and it is only the table and Dorian’s sudden, strong arm around his waist that prevents Maxwell Trevelyan from collapsing into the snow. He shakes his head, murmuring unintelligble words, ruminating on the falsehoods Solas must be spewing, because Evelyn, his _sister_ is the strongest woman he has ever known--

And yet, it has been seven months.

How many men and women stronger, more prepared, than Evelyn have fallen victim to endless days of manipulation? He wretches, turning away from the table to gag and cough. A warm hand caresses his hair, and he lets out a quiet, broken whimper. But once it has forced itself from his throat, he coughs, and wipes his mouth, turning back to his comrades.

“Regardless of… Regardless of who she has _become_ , she is still the Inquisitor… she is still Evelyn. She is still my _sister_ , and we _will_ bring her home.”

He does not look at Cullen. Does not want to see the stricken expression on the other mans face. He is not sure he can bare it. 

“Prepare the scouts. We strike now.”

* * * 

His hand comes up in a silent order, and the group behind him stalls. He is not the scout, but he has seen the signal from ahead, and as the Inquisitor, it is _his_ job to keep his squad safe. They may protect him so he can seal rifts, but this is not a rift, and thus, it is his game.

Solas, beside him, takes a sharp intake of breath, and points towards a broken window in the uppermost right corner of Suledin Keep. “There,” he murmurs, tendrils of magic sparking around his fingers. And Cole lets out a quiet whine. “ _Pain, pain, it hurts, why does it hurt, oh Corypheus---_ ,” the entire group snaps around at that, and Solas lets out a pitiful sigh.

“Cole, I had hoped…”

Max fixes Solas with a tight glare, and from the shift at his side, he is certain Cullen has done the same. “What,” he bites out, “does Cole mean?” 

“Evelyn… was confused, in the Fade,” admits the Elven mage, his shoulders slumping slightly. This, Max knows, is a sight he is liable never to see again, but he is too focused on the thrumming terror in his blood to acknowledge the sheer _humanity_ that the usually aloof Solas is exhibiting. He refuses to acknowledge what it may mean. “She believes herself a follower of the Elder One, of Corypheus. She… called to him for help when she saw me approach.”

Beside Max, Cullen lets out a strangled noise that sounds something like a wounded mabari. It takes all of Max’s self control not to emulate. He grits his teeth, places a gauntleted hand on Cullen’s shoulder, and takes a controlled breath. The two warriors share a look that is easily read; _We will save her._

They advance, quiet as the dead, a team of seven moving in quiet unison. Vivienne and Bull work well together, which Max finds strange, considering how the two can barely stand one another back at Skyhold. He supposes they respect one another’s strengths. Cole and Dorian are similar, though they have a better rapport, easy smiles and sly movements; Cullen and Solas are awkward with one another, and that is why Max stays with them, a step ahead.

The teams are split in a three-pronged attack, bolstered by the Inquisition’s army only meters behind. They are the advance team, and have only one objective; Suledin Keep be damned, the only thing this team is after is Evelyn Trevelyan.

* * * 

The pain is distant.

She wonders if this should worry her. 

Her abdomen is on fire. Her eyes open enough for her to realise there is something sticking out of her.

The pain is cold.

She whimpers. The sounds of battle fill the Keep, echoing through her broken window..

She cries out as she shifts, and realises the terrible truth.

The pain is quiet.

Evelyn Trevelyan, Initiate of Corypheus, is dying.

The fear sets in.

* * * 

Footsteps echo through the corridors as the team moves toward. Behind them, Max can hear the screams of dying Venatori and Red Templars-- he does not care. They took his baby sister, they hurt her, and he does not care if they fear death. Perhaps, he thinks callously, they should have thought of that before allying with a madman.

Solas directs them, leading them through crumbling halls until he stops in front of a small cell. The scent of blood is heavy in the air, and Max coughs to try to clear his throat. It feels as though he has drunk a philter full of the damn stuff, and Cole gives him an unreadable look.

“Heavy, like fog, like weights, all around us, magic has a cost, it’s so heavy, can’t wait to leave this place, no one ever said,” his voice is like the wind, constant and unyielding, and Max heaves silently. He does not know whose thoughts Cole is reading, but Dorian lays a hand on the spirit-boys shoulder, and Cole goes silent. Perhaps, then, it was Dorian. 

“Blood magic,” murmurs the altus. “This feeling is… familiar.” His posture is defeated, and Max hates seeing his lover so… so broken. He is one of the few who know how Dorian feels about blood magic, at least nowadays. It is-- it is not something they discuss lightly. 

“Indeed,” agrees Solas, as he kneels down to examine shackles that have seen better days. As the elf runs his fingers across the silverite, Max sees him shudder. “Infection set in upon whomever wore these…” He does not say it, but Evelyn’s tattered cloak and shorn hair in the corner tells the group who wore those shackles. Max nods curtly. 

“Onward. I know where she is.” Cole and Solas lead, working in tandem, spirit and spirit whisperer. The sounds of battle echo beneath them, but the team is focused on one goal, and one goal only; Evelyn. 

It seems to be an eternity later that Solas and Cole stop them in front of a heavy sylvainwood door. Cole looks horrified, and immediately begins to babble, but Bull claps a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. “Not now, kid.”

“I want to help, can’t I---,” and again, Bull shakes his head. “You can’t help them with this.”

The group parts, allowing Max and Cullen to take the front, carefully edging the door open. 

At first glance, the room is empty. There is a solid looking, tilted table in the center of the room; it is covered in blood, new and old, and Max does not linger upon it. Beside it, a stool and table hold all manner of implements that he does not want to identify. They said she was here, so where--

He freezes, and gags on air. 

That creature in the corner cannot be his sister.

* * * 

Cullen feels his blood run cold as Max freezes. Dorian rushes forward. Bull shouts for Solas and Vivienne. The world is spinning, but his vision is focused upon one thing--

Evelyn, though she no longer looks herself, is impaled upon a snake-head staff, the grip barely protruding from her emaciated stomach. She is wearing a bloodied and filthy shift, her hair is oily and lank around her face, and she looks…

_Maker_ , she looks like the undead creatures she had reported on from the Fallow Mire. 

He rushes towards her, quickly pulling a health potion from his belt. His hand goes to her head, and he winces at how delicate she feels-- she is all paper skin and bird-like bones. The Evelyn of his memories is lithe and lean, all muscle and humour-- this woman is nothing like that. Her eyes are purple and swollen, her nose crooked from what his experience tells him is a broken nose (or multiple broken noses, his cruel mind reminds him). Her jaw appears broken, and he tries to ignore the small sobbing noise she makes as he carefully opens her mouth.

“It’s alright, Evie,” he whispers, tipping the potion down her throat. “It’s Cullen, we’ve come to bring you ho--” 

His words are cut off by her shriek, as the potion takes effect. She opens her eyes as far as she can, and howls. “Get away! Get away! You can’t! Who-- who are-- _who are you_?” 

Her attempts to scramble away from him are hindered by the staff in her stomach, and she screams anew as it shifts, fresh blood soaking her soiled tunic. Cullen darts towards her, holding her firm. “You have to stop, Evelyn. You’ll…” He chokes on his words, tears prickling at his eyes. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“ _Messere_ ,” she is sobbing for someone who is not there, and his heart aches for her. “Messere, please. I will be good. I swear, I serve our Master. Please, Messere, _please_.” She thrashes in his arms, screaming in agony all the while. He cannot look at her like this, but he must. 

Her sobs bounce off the walls, echo in the torture chamber, and Cullen realises Solas was right; this is not the Evelyn they lost.

* * * 

It takes a sleep spell from Dorian before Evelyn is docile enough to move. Between the three mages, and all of the lyrium potions the group had brought along with them, they manage to stabilise her, but some of her wounds are too fragile, too delicate, to heal with magic. They can be assisted, explains Vivienne, but attempting to entirely heal her with magic would only cause a shock to her system.

Most of her injuries will have to heal naturally; she has far too many.

Cullen refuses to allow anyone else to carry the tiny body of his… his lover? his friend? He does not want to define their relationship now, not when she is so… so small in his arms. She weighs barely more than a bag of feathers, and he fears that if he grips her too tightly she will shatter, like glass. Max has tended to her, muttered sweet nothings and promises of vengeance, but Cullen refuses to relinquish his grip on her.

Max accepts this without argument, too busy sagging against Dorian, relief evident in his posture. Cullen isn’t certain he shares the Inquisitor’s joy, though. The barely breathing woman in his arms is not the woman they had hoped to rescue.

Still, he refuses to let her go once they arrive at camp; he holds her through the examinations, the reiterations that she is _too damaged_ to repair magically, Commander. She will be unable to ride a mount for months, one surgeon explains quietly, and she will heal best back at Skyhold.

And thus, Cullen finds himself with Evelyn’s head in his lap, her breathing quiet and even thanks to another sleep potion, in an old supply caravan, settling in for the long journey back to Skyhold.

* * * 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _hamin_ \- rest  
>  _da'len_ \- little one  
>  _ir abelas_ \- i am sorry (i have sorrow)
> 
> Cheers to the DragonAge Wikia and the ProjectElvhen for the Elvhen in this chapter.
> 
> I took a few liberties with the Fade, and a few with what they may have done to Cullen/Evie's coin... for which I am _very_ sorry. 
> 
> [Reference for the Venatori Crest](https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/9/92/Venatori_Crest_stand_in.png/revision/latest?cb=20141210023006)
> 
> [Reference for Cullen's lucky coin](https://img1.etsystatic.com/131/0/12610156/il_570xN.1001832061_9hv8.jpg)
> 
> Forgive me. If I had photoshop skill, I would etch the dragons into the coin face with red stone or something, but I'm not that skilled!


	4. part 4

They arrive in Skyhold as quietly as they can. It would not do for either Inquisitor, nor the party that accompanied them, to be exposed to so much intensity so soon after the events of Suledin’s Keep. And so they arrive under the cover of night, Cullen quietly ordering the gates opened, the caravan carrying his heart directed to a quiet place near the stables to be unloaded.

He refuses to allow anyone else to carry her, his thumb brushing against the coin that is affixed to her arm. He had near vomited when he had seen what they had done to his gift to her-- it hadn’t given her any luck at all, he thought with a vicious stab of self-pity and hatred, had only hurt her. But she would not let them remove it, even in her half-conscious state, mumbling pitifully that she would not be denied her prayers to Corypheus.

It all came back to the Magister, and Cullen thought, not for the first time, that if the Grey Warden’s hadn’t been so damned _secretive_ , perhaps things could have been different. He was long passed blaming Hawke or Varric for their part in setting Corypheus loose in Thedas; if it had not been them, someone else would have done it eventually-- Hawke had explained as much over several flagons of ale in the Rest months earlier. 

But it did not prevent him from hating the system that had failed. And as he looked at the restless woman in his arms, the shadow of his sweet Evelyn, he hated himself for failing her. 

As they arrived in her shared quarters, he shifted to allow Max to unlock his own door. The twins, it had been decided, would remain in their own quarters-- the healers felt that an intimately familiar setting may aid in her recovery. 

So far, all she has done is scream.

* * * 

The Fade is a unique place, and Solas is comfortable within it; he should be, given that he is responsible for the Veil that divides it from the living world. He is uniquely aware of all of its facets, of all of the magicks that seem a far-flung dream to the mages of today. This does not prepare him for what he finds when he enters the Fade tonight.

Evelyn sits not far away, and does not stir as he approaches. She looks confused, and he is about to reach out to her, to try to help her remember, when she does something he does not expect. He has never seen someone react this way in the Fade-- it disconcerts him, as she stands, and…

Her face shifts, vibrates like the song of lyrium, like a bowstring after it has loosed an arrow, like the magic that thrums in his very veins. Her entire being seems to _shift_ and suddenly he is looking at a very different Evelyn Trevelyan than the one who screams from her quarters in Skyhold, the one he helped rescue from the Keep. 

The clothes that Max, Cullen, and the various healers have been helping her into, the warm tunics and leggings she favoured before she was taken, have been replaced by a torn shift, soiled and filthy. It is, Solas realises with cold realisation, not dissimilar to the one that they found her wearing. 

Her hair is matted with blood, her nose broken, left cheek puffed up in a manner so grotesque that it surely means her cheek bone is broken. Tear tracks are discernable only because they have washed away a layer of grime and dirt from her pale cheeks, and her wrists-- he fights the temptation to swear aloud, to move on her quickly and heal her hurts. They are red, and look sore, infected, and sickly. The telltale lines of blood poisoning stretch from the wounds, and he makes a mental note to review the notes the surgeons and healers have prepared when he returns from the Fade. 

But her eyes are what concerns him; they are not the blank, empty orbs of the woman who resides upstairs, but panicked, wild, and feral. She fixes him with her gaze, and she wails.

“ _Solas_ , why didn’t you come for me?”

Tears begin to stream down her cheeks, and he is startled into action, moving towards her. She yelps like a frightened animal and backs away, choking, limbs vibrating again. “Why,” she whispers, looking at him mournfully. “Why did you leave me there, Solas? Why did no one ever come for me?”

“We did, _da’len_ ,” he murmurs, trying to soothe her fears. “You are home, now--”

Her shriek cuts him off, “I am _not_!” And as her form begins to shake and blur again, he begins to wonder on the stories of the _Somniari_ , of the poor souls trapped within their own minds, unable to escape. “I have never left,” she says, eyes full of regret. “I know I wasn’t a priority, but-- but-- but--” 

She trails off, a sob wrenching itself from her gut, and she wails in pain. He makes to move towards her again and she lets him this time, allows him within a few feet of her, before he stops. She is shaking again. “Why didn’t you come for me, Cullen?” Her voice sounds broken, dejected, torn apart. Blood trickles from her lips and she shakes again, sobs wracking her bird-like figure. 

“I tried,” she mumbles, fixing him with a stare that cuts him to the bone. It feels as though she is seeing through his carefully maintained facade, seeing _Fen’Harel_ , seeing the Solas who slept for thousands of years, rather than the apostate Elvhen who has taken up residence in her rotunda. It makes him shift uncomfortably. “I tried to wait, but-- but-- I tried-- tried…” She slumps slightly, shoulders dropping, and he feels a power unfamiliar begin to swirl around her.

“I-- I couldn’t… couldn’t… too-- too much-- too much…” Evelyn sounds exhausted, and she sways. His instinct is to catch her, but she does not fall. “I couldn’t… keep going,” she mumbles, and he sees small tendrils of something silvery and blood-red begin to creep around her legs. Her bare feet are soon covered with familiar soft, halla leather boots, and the leggings she has worn around Skyhold come into view as the tendrils crawl up her body. 

“I gave up.” The finality in her broken voice is near too much to bare. “No one was ever coming for me. I died, didn’t I, Solas?”

Evelyn Trevelyan looks at him, and she is bereft of emotion, broken and empty as the chests in the Deep Roads, as the smashed pots abandoned in the formerly-flooded Old Crestwood. As the wisps crawl to her chest, replace her weeping wounds with scars that will never be removed, Solas puts a hand to her cheek.

“We came, Inquisitor. And we will come and get you again, this I swear.”

Her eyes brighten for a brief moment, a spark of hope behind the wash of despair, but it is gone as the mist recedes from her body, and the Evelyn they carried from that chamber has returned.

“Begone, demon.”

He goes, leaving the Fade with more questions than answers for the first time in a very long time.

* * * 

“What does that _mean_ , Solas?”

Maxwell Trevelyan does not like magic, today.

Normally, he is quite fond. His great-aunt was a Senior Enchanter for many years, and he still remembers visiting her in Ostwick when he and Evelyn were very young. She used to charm toys to play with them, chased them around the tower as they giggled and laughed. 

Ostwick, he learned after joining the Inquisition, was an anomaly for a Circle. He shivers as memories of Cullen explaining his experiences in Kinloch and the Gallows batter him, shakes his head to rid himself of the reminder that the _real_ Cole died of starvation, under the threat of Tranquility. 

His lover is a mage, and a beautiful one at that. Dorian’s control over his magic is gorgeous, enchanting, and often Max finds himself being pulled back by Bull, or Sera, or Varric, during battle because he has let his gaze linger on the beautiful Tevinter for a moment too long. He finds magic alluring, and dangerous, and exciting.

Today, he hates magic. 

The explanation is simple, he is sure, but nothing is ever simple with mages and dreamers and whatever nonsense the spellweavers are spewing. Vivienne, Dagna, Fiona, Dorian, Solas, and a handful of the mages and Tranquil rescued from Redcliffe have all been working tirelessly since three days earlier, when Solas had informed Dorian and Fiona of his suspicions; that Evelyn, _their_ Evelyn, was trapped within her own mind, replaced by…

His stomach churned as he thought of the creature upstairs, who spoke with his sister’s voice, wore her skin, emulated some of her mannerisms, but was decidedly _not_ his sister. He refuses to think of the shell upstairs as his sister, because if he does, then it will be even more evident that he has failed her in ways so unspeakable that… that…

He pushes himself away from Solas’ desk and paces across the rotunda.

“Evelyn is hiding,” supplies the healer with whom Solas had spent hours locked away after he awoke that first night. “She, or her soul, or…” The healer moves her hands in a flurry, trying to catch words that float away like bubbles, unwilling to be captured in a language too primitive to give them their due. “The _person_ that the Inquisitor is, is hiding within her own mind. I saw it in… Well, in the past,” and at this, Cullen shifts uncomfortably on the other side of the room. Max winces slightly, all too aware of the hurts the Commander had suffered. 

“But, I’ve never seen a case like hers,” continues the woman, wringing her hands together. “That she has survived at all is a miracle, but… She seems to have forgotten _everything_ , bar her own name-- but that could simply be because her captors kept calling her by it.” The healer sighs again. “I would suggest we bring in a spirit healer, but they are so few and far between after the Rebellion…”

Cullen stirs, ready to offer up a suggestion, but Solas shakes his head.

“She… We cannot repair her mind with magic, Inquisitor. She must… return to herself naturally. To heal her mind from this would cause more damage. A Spirit Healer can only do so much.”

It’s a good thing he moved away from the table, because had he been standing near it when Solas spoke, he may have broken it. Instead, he just swears, and rounds on the elf. 

“Then _how_ ,” he hisses, “do we fix my _sister_?”

Solas sighs and shrugs, elegant as the Orlesian tapestries adoring Vivienne’s small sitting room. 

“Time.”

* * * 

Time is not moving quickly enough.

Evelyn is not getting better.

Cullen paces his office, fighting the urge to run to Cassandra, to beg and plead with her to give him the lyrium. His head pounds, his hands shake, and Rylen, who has been recalled from Griffon’s Wing at Cullen’s insistence, has been taking on more and more of the paperwork Cullen is incapable of looking at for too long. 

His skin feels too tight, his armour too heavy, his head too full. 

“She’s fighting.”

The voice startles him from his self-pitying pacing, and he rounds on the spirit--boy-- _demon_ \-- no, he amends, the spirit-boy who is sitting on top of his desk. 

“How did you even get in here?”

“Screaming, clawing, fighting, wants to be free, can’t escape, too much, too painful, but Cullen, Cullen, Cullen will come, he will come, he will come. She needs you. She just doesn’t remember.”

The sentiment is there, but Cullen is pale, sweat beading on his forehead, and he takes a shuddering breath. “I am no use to her like this.”

“You are.”

It is enough.

He goes.

* * *

At first light, Evelyn is awake. It is a habit she picked up… she isn’t sure, to be honest with herself. Her memories only stretch so far, and before that is simply darkness; Corypheus and the Kindly Man were her guiding lights, and now they are gone, and she is here, in the hive of her enemy, and they speak to her as if she is _someone else_ and she hates it, hates it, hates it, hates it like she hates the soft fabrics they force her into.

Hates it like she hates the soft mattress they try to get her to sleep on--

(she prefers the floor-- it is solid like her table used to be)

Hates it like she hates being alone, being spoken to, being healed-- she hates the way they rotate, the way unfamiliar faces come in and sit with her and cry sometimes because, _”Why can’t you talk to us, Evelyn?”_ and _”We miss you, Evelyn,”_ and _”We love you, Evie.”_

She hates that one the most. 

She is a broken thing if she cannot fulfill her obligation to her master, but it becomes harder with each day. The screaming pain she had become so accustomed to has long since receded, and she does not know who she is without it clawing at her. 

All she has is her coin, and it is her beacon, her anchor in the storm that is this… this _Inquisition_ , though she thinks of it more as hell. If she is their prisoner, why is she not treated as one? She hates the mixed messages, the confused signals, and so she clutches tighter to the well-worn coin, ignores the way several of her apparent companions blanche when they see it, ignores the way that one of them (the blonde one, the one who seems so eager to see her, whose face drops every time she tells him she does not know him, does not want to know him, demands to be released) cannot stand to look at it, ignores, ignores, _ignores_ the nagging sensation in the back of her mind that something is not right.

As days go by, her body begins to hurt more, bones knitting back together, and the surgeons who frequent her side look puzzled, discomforted, unhappy. She does not trust those looks. They tell her they need to fix her bones, that she is healing wrong, but she refuses. She is healing, she tells them, as her Master intends. 

That night, the wine she has only recently consented to drink tastes peculiar, and when she awakes, she is in familiar agony again, arms and legs bandaged, abdomen bandaged, healers on her side apologising, telling her they did it for her, it’s in her best interest, but she only screams, and howls, and no amount of numbing potion can numb her betrayal to her master. 

The unfamiliar faces beside her explain that her bones had set incorrectly, that she would be unable to walk, or write, or fight, or do _anything_ if the healers had not acted, but she ignores them, chanting words she had heard in corners during her time in the Kindly Man’s care, reciting hymns created only for the Elder One, screaming until they leave her side. 

Her head is spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning like the game she played as a chi--- No.

No.

 _No_.

Her mind is splitting, head cracking, and she coughs up blood as she screams her throat raw. She escapes in her mind, desperate for some sort of relief from this hell they have created for her. She wants to go home, back to her chamber with the Kindly Man-- she knows he would have more use for her than this, more than simply being bound to a bed, tortured by these heretics, these _heathens_ who claw at superiority.

She tells herself they are nothing to her, but the nagging in the back of her mind remains.

* * *

Her body is healing, but her mind is not.

Cullen sits beside the waif-like monster wearing the skin of the woman he loves, and Maker, why had he not told her before she had left? He curses, fingers clenched around the bastardised coin he had taken from her arm himself. It’s become a symbol of his failure, the stylised combination of Venatori snakes made from bloodstone to reflect their partnership with the Red Templars, engraved over the face of Andraste. 

He has failed the Bride of the Maker as much as he has failed Evelyn. “ _Fuck_.” He roars as he throws the coin across the room, barely noticing as it pings off of the stone wall and rolls beneath the twin desks below. Beside him, Evelyn-- not his Evelyn, though-- stirs, eyes slowly opening as she adjusts to the hazy morning light. 

The first time she had awoken, he had tried to take her hand, tried to calm her, but she had just screamed, and screamed, and screamed herself bloody until the healers were forced to administer a calming draught. She hasn’t screamed in a few days, throat too sore, he surmises, or perhaps she has simply realised the futility of it all. 

The silence is almost more painful than hearing her sobs, though. 

Eyes he loves fix on him and he sighs, running his hand through his hair. The curls are pushing back, making themselves known, but he cannot bring himself to care-- there are more important things to deal with, and that alone is why Josephine has not yet commented on it, he knows that for certain. “How are you feeling?” The question will likely remain unanswered.

“Water,” comes the unexpected reply. He lurches, eyes wide, because this is the first time she has spoken in weeks, and immediately pulls the skin of water from his belt. “Of course, my lady.” He lifts the skin to her lips, watching them crack slightly as she suckles at the gentle stream. When she’s had her fill, he pulls back, looking at her.

Cheeks filled out again thanks to a proper diet and no longer swollen beyond repair, he can see the damage they have done to her. Her nose is still askew, and always will be, according to the butchers in the medical building. It had been broken and left unset too many times for them to fix it entirely. There’s a bump that never used to be there, just below the bridge, and he wonders if she’ll ever let him kiss it. 

Her fingers used to dazzle him, so long and lithe, deft where his were clumsy, but now they are gnarled and crooked. A few more surgeries and healing spells will give her the ability to wield her blades again, but she’ll have to use herbal creams every morning and evening, and follow a strict regime of exercises if she wants to avoid them stiffening and aching. The same is true of her feet, though he cannot see them. They are still swollen, still damaged, but the healers hope she’ll be able to put weight on them before Satinalia. 

When she will be able to walk, however, is another matter entirely. Her legs are too thin, the muscle atrophied from months of disuse. Much of her knees have been completely shattered, and it is only thanks to clever Dagna that she will be able to retain any use of her lower limbs. The dwarf, with Dorian and Vivienne’s assistance, had modified runes to better allow the healers to target the shattered pieces of bones, giving them more ability to knit back together her broken form. 

If he had not seen it happen, Cullen would have doubted it was even possible. But he won’t forget the way she screamed and sobbed as the bones beneath her skin began to move, glowing under the ministrations of the best healers the Inquisition could find. The sight of them moving, pressing against her flesh from the inside, had made him nauseous, but he had soldiered on, if only for her. He would never be able to face her if he looked away. 

So lost is he in his thoughts, he does not realise she is staring back at him, a peculiar look on her face. “Yes, Inquisitor?” 

“Why do you call me that?” she demands to know, eyes narrowed. “You heathens call me Inquisitor, call the other man Inquisitor, as if he and I are alike.”

He stifles a chuckle at that. The Trevelyan twins, even now, are more alike than either of them care to admit. 

“You bandy about nonsense about your false gods, denying the evidence presented before you, and try to claim me as some symbol? I have never even _met_ any of you before, and yet you claim to heal me, you keep me comfortable,” she frowns slightly at this. “As comfortable as one can be when they are having their body broken and broken again,” she amends. “And you call it an obligation, a service. Why?”

Cullen supposed he hadn’t realised quite how much they had gotten into her mind. But he knows how that feels.

“We did know you, all of us. You and the other Inquisitor, your brother--”

“I don’t have a brother.”

“You do,” he insists, and sighs again. “No matter how many times I tell you the truth, Evelyn, you will not believe me. So, perhaps I’ll tell you something to make you understand why I remain, at least.”

Even before she left, before she became _this_ , he had not told her everything about Kinloch. 

Now, he does. 

“When I was a new recruit…”

* * *

Something changed that day in her quarters.

Things seem different now. 

She requests his presence more often than anyone else’s bar Dorian’s (some things, Cullen thinks with a quiet smile, will never change, even after torture and torment), and though she rarely says anything, she lets him sit next to her bed. Sometimes she even consents to listen while he talks, or reads, or polishes his armour. Often, she sleeps. 

In her sleep, she cries. It tugs at his heartstrings to know he cannot comfort her, but he knows better than anyone that to get through the confusion in her own mind, she will have to face her demons eventually. He simply wishes he could get through to her and help her remember.

But they are getting through to her. He knows, because she asks more questions. Even though she says little, the few things she does ask are important. She questions him about the Chantry, about the Inquisition, about Corypheus. She questions him about where she was found, why they were looking for her.

He answers her as best he can, and though she refuses to accept most of his information as true, he watches as she slowly begins to warm to him. 

It’s a start.

* * *

The day she breaks is the best, and worst, day of his life.

It has been four months since they brought her back from the Emprise du Lion, eleven months since her ordeal began, and though her bones have knitted back together, and her physical therapy has begun under the keen eyes of Cullen, Cassandra, and a myriad of healers and specialists, she still has not taken a step outside of her quarters since she returned. 

He carries her down the steps, obliging her requests to ‘get out of that damned room’ because, despite what she thinks, she is _not_ a prisoner. She hasn’t called out to Corypheus to save her in weeks, and that, apparently, is a good sign. 

Dagna had worked with some of the builders to fashion her a chair with wheels, so that she may be pushed around the keep until such time as she may walk. Dorian has already thought of a thousand ways to make it more entertaining, but thusfar, it is simply a chair with wheels and handles for him to hold. He sets her down in it gently, brushing her hair from her face. She does not flinch away as she used to, but neither does she lean into his touch as she once would have. 

That hurts more than he could ever say. 

Later, the healers will explain that it was likely that familiar touch, accompanied by the walk to the battlements where they shared their first incredible kisses, that likely brought her back to him. But how can she have come back when she still feels so far away?

She is looking out over the mountains when his hand brushes by her face again. She lurches, and her face crumples, and then she is screaming. He’s on his knees beside her in an instant, and his eyes widen as he sees tears rolling down her cheeks, her own eyes wild and terrified. There is a light in them that had been absent for months. “ _Cullen_ ,” she wails, and his hands go for hers. She sobs hysterically, breaths coming in short gasps. She thrashes in her chair, clearly terrified, and the combination sends her falling from it.

He lunges towards her to prevent her head from hitting the stone, pulls her towards him out of sheer instinct. Protecting her is all he has ever wanted to do, and as she screams and sobs, it is all he _can_ do to protect her from herself. “Please,” she sobs. “Please, please, let me go home. I want to go home. Cullen, _Cullen_ , please.” 

“You _are_ home, Evelyn. It’s me. I’m here. I’m right here, Evelyn. Breathe for me.” His voice is pleading as he pulls her into his lap, wrapping strong arms around her. Scouts have arrived, brought by her hysterical yelling, and he shouts for them to get Leliana, get Dorian, get Solas, but refuses to stop murmuring quietly to Evelyn. “We brought you home, Evie. We brought you home.”

Her tears soak his feathered pauldrons, but he can’t bring himself to care. Beside him, Dorian has appeared, and Max as well. When Evelyn hears her brothers voice, she lets out another hysterical sob, grasping blindly for him. “ _Max_. Max, why didn’t you come for me?”

“We did,” whispers her brother, his heart clearly breaking. “We did, Evie. We did.”

With Max’s help, Cullen stands with Evelyn still in his arms. She clings to him like a lifeline, like he is her only port in a storm. He supposes that is probably the most accurate representation as her memories are likely flooding her mind. He whispers softly to her as he carries her through Skyhold, back up to her rooms, where Solas and the healers await her. Cole lingers in the corner, face half hidden. Cullen hasn't the heart to send him away, and his presence seems to calm Evelyn, somehow. 

“Don’t leave me,” she begs, red-rimmed eyes looking up at him. He shakes his head gently. “I won’t, Evelyn. I won’t leave you.”

* * *

The healers say it is a miracle that the memories did not completely break her mind, but Cullen isn’t so sure that they’re right.

Three weeks after Evelyn’s memory unceremoniously made itself welcome, she hasn’t made it a day without crying. She cannot sleep in the dark, or without someone else by her side. When a window shattered during standard rebuilding efforts, she had to be restrained as she tried to throw herself into the shards of glass, babbling nonsense all the while.

It is, in a way, more painful to see her this way. 

She oscillates between meek and hysterical, there is no in between. And when she does sleep, she sobs, and screams, and thrashes. The Inner Circle takes it in turns to stay with her, because it means a sleepless night, and not even Cullen with his Templar training, or Iron Bull with his iron will and Ben-Hassrath skills, can handle all of it. 

Walking is proving more difficult than they had initially believed. Though her muscles are rebuilding themselves, she cries every time someone tries to get her to put her feet on the ground. She cannot be left alone, even for a moment, because…

Well, Cullen does not like to think of the day he found her clawing at her arms, screaming hysterically about spices in her blood, about filth, about the depraved things that had been done to her. He had read the reports after her rescue, had held her down while the mages had reopened wounds and cleaned them out (he will never forget that the first time he saw her arse was while they were healing the infected tissue), but hearing her sob and relive the moments is almost more than he can bare. 

He does, for her. 

When he goes to her in the evening, she is curled up in a ball, nestled within the enormous pile of blankets she has scavenged from every corner of the keep. He does not begrudge her this, knows it helps her feel safe, but even so, it’s faintly irritating as he climbs onto her bed and gently wrestles her out of the twisted fabric. She settles quietly into his lap.

It’s a familiar position now. She does not seem to want to be held any other way. The first time he touched her wrists after she ‘woke up’ (for want of a better way to explain it, this is how they have all been referring to her memory returning), she had thrashed and sobbed and promised not to scream if he didn’t hurt her. He shuddered to think of the time she had begun to remove her tunic, begging him not to tell the ‘kindly man’ that she had soiled the sheets one morning. 

His fingers found her short hair, and gently carded through it, listening to her even breathing. “How long?” she whispers, face buried in his chest. They haven’t spoken to her, much, about her captivity. It has been suggested that it’s safer to wait until she has healed, mentally, a bit more before telling her everything that happened while she was gone. He knows he isn’t ready to hear everything they did to her, but she’ll have to be debriefed on it soon. 

“Seven months,” he says softly, a sigh escaping and shifting her slightly. She lets out a quiet sob. “I didn’t… What had to be done first?” He frowns at this and shifts her so that he may look upon her face. She looks broken.

“‘What had to be done first’?” He repeats back, quirking an eyebrow. 

“What needed doing, before you could focus on coming to get me?”

He laughs, almost incredulous. Does she truly think… But one look at her face tells him that _yes_ , she truly believes they did not prioritise her rescue. 

“Inquisitor…”

“Am I? They said…” she takes a steadying breath. “They said the Inquisition… that they rescinded my title, after… after… but they lied… so…” She does not seem able to form her thoughts into words, and he shakes his head, rubbing his thumb against the shell of her ear in a way he knows calms her slightly. She relaxes a little. “I didn’t go to them, Cullen,” she whispers. “I promise, I didn’t.”

“We did no such thing, Inquisitor. We began searching for you _immediately_. We’ve done little else since your… since your ordeal began.” They had done some, of course, had taken control of smaller parts of the Storm Coast, had rooted out the Red Templars, and Max had been a man possessed, going out on every single possible trip to distract himself. “Your return was the _most_ important thing to us. We know you were taken from us. We know you didn’t want this.”

She lets out a sob at that. He cannot understand why. 

 

“W-why?”

“What do you mean, _why_? Evelyn…” He shakes his head again. “You are the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste--”

“No,” she whispers, cutting him off. “Max is the Inquisitor. Max is the Herald. I’m just… just his sister. I… I’m useless.” Her voice is tight and strained. “A burden. They… they were right…” She goes to pull away from him, but he holds her fast, refusing her abandonment.

“No.”

His voice is hard and she flinches. He doesn’t apologise, but instead takes her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head so she looks him dead in the eyes. She has tears brimming, splashing against her lashes, and he sighs. “Evelyn, you are the _most_ important person in the Inquisition.”

“But--”

“Hush, it’s my turn to speak.” 

And so he tells her. He tells her about the Chargers and their constant scouting missions, about how they barely spent a moment in the Herald’s Rest before her return, because they couldn’t bare the thought of her not being there with them. He tells her about how Maryden had barely spoken, let alone sung, since her disappearance. He tells her about Josephine’s sleepless nights, her panic as she realised precisely how much _easier_ having Evelyn around had made things. 

He tells her about how Blackwall had not whittled a single thing in the seven months she was gone, how Sera played no pranks and instead disappeared for days and weeks at a time when she was not off with Max or Dagna. How Cassandra cut through thousands of practice dummies and refused to speak to _anyone_ about things not related directly to the goals of the Inquisition. He tells her about Max, about his own nightmares, about Dorian’s unending searches for some sort of spell that could locate her. 

She is crying quietly when he finishes his stories, clutching at him for dear life. 

“Evelyn, if I have to, I will prove to you every single day for the rest of our lives that you are _not_ a burden. Not even close.”

It is enough, for now.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right, we've basically caught up with where i've written up to, so updates will now be slower. as always, they are posted to dreamwidth first (on the kinkmeme) in sections, and then posted here in full later on :) 
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr](http://janetsvandyne.tumblr.com), all my love!


	5. part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dubious consent in here, because they're both traumatised as fuck. ye have been warned

**PART FIVE**

She wakes up crying a lot, more often than she would like to admit. But Cullen is always beside her when she wakes, stroking her hair and kissing away her tears. For all that they had only barely embarked on their fletchling relationship before she was pulled away from him, he has been her rock throughout her recovery. The thought simultaneously warms and terrifies her.

Who could possibly love someone so broken that they can’t even look at the spice rack in the kitchens without panicking? 

Still, his presence is what bolsters her. It’s easier to talk to people when he is beside her, and soon she resumes having a glass of wine with Dorian in the gardens, sitting with Sera and Bull in the tavern, and attending war meetings with Max.

Max.

They haven’t discussed what happened to her, not really. It’s been months since she’s been home, but for only a little bit of that time has she been herself again. She doesn’t think he knows what to say, and she isn’t sure she knows what she _wants_ him to say either.

She knows, in her heart, that she is not the same sister who had followed him to the Conclave, to the Breach, to the ends of Thedas, and she never will be again. She knows it, deep in her soul, but putting it into words is harder, and instead she finds herself crying into Dorian’s shoulder, or Cullen’s cloak, or Leliana’s warm embrace. (That, in itself, has been enough of a shock that Evelyn isn’t certain she’ll ever be able to look at their Spymaster the same way again; she has a softness about her since their trip to the small chantry, a kindness that the King had remarked on being long lost now, when they had met him once in Redcliffe. To have Leliana hold her and sing the sweet songs of her youth was… well, Evelyn knows she will never be able to repay Leliana properly.) 

And thus, she avoids it; she avoids being alone with Max, avoids meeting his eyes as she slowly begins to venture out into Skyhold. She can’t do it often-- the walls seem to close in on her, they are too tall, too bright, too _much_ more often than not, but she is trying, and that is what is important, at least according to the healers and the scholars and every other last person who has poked her and prodded her and made her feel as if she is a rat in a cage. So she does not engage with him, even in the meetings, and she can’t… she can’t figure out a way to fix what is wrong with her. 

In the depths of her heart, she isn’t sure there is a way at all.

* * *

_A slightly creased report, dictated by Her Worship, Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan, containing the particulars of her kidnapping and subsequent captivity at the hands of the Red Templars and Venatori, in the Emprise du Lion._

_Addendums have been made in a shocking green ink, though the handwriting is the same throughout. Compiled by Altus Dorian Pavus, for the Inquisition’s records. Altus has made endeavours to keep with the halting manner of speech exhibited by Her Worship, Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan._

_The report is splattered with tears._

> Oh, Dorian, can’t we skip this part? I don’t want… I don’t want to talk about it… Are you writing this down as well? Dorian! Stop it! Oh, for Andraste’s sake… Fine.
> 
> After the… after the initial time… Oh, Maker, Dorian, I don’t even know how long I was in that first room. They took my hair, Dorian… They shaved my head and hit me when I laughed at them. And I knew you would come, eventually, but it took so long, Dorian, that… That I… It was always so dark. I knew that people did that, of course. We’ve read the same books, and Bull has… well, he talked to us about it in the Wastes, ages ago, do you remember? He told us about his training, but I had never thought…
> 
> It was always so dark. And then it would be bright for… for so long. I lost track of time so early, Dorian. It was horrible, I started to forget which way was up. 
> 
> Right, right. This is a report. Not a sob story. I…Right.
> 
> They held me in a small cell, alternately suspended by chains, and then released, for significant periods of time, though I cannot speak to the actual length of each instance. Often, it was changed just before my position would become bearable due to increasing numbness in my limbs. They would feed me irregularly, so that I could not keep track of a rotation, and it seems guards were instructed to stay away from my cell, as I often went… a very long time, or what felt like one, with naught but my own breathing to keep me company. 
> 
> Without warning, bright flames would erupt from the walls, and would burn unendingly. I cannot say whether this was worse or better than the piercing darkness, but it hurt immeasurably. They never spoke to me, but… I don’t think they had to. They just made me feel… so alone. So, so alone. I couldn’t bare it. I felt like I would never be happy again. I couldn’t even see them when they brought me food. They covered my eyes, I think… or I closed them.. I can’t even remember, Dorian… Why can’t I remember?
> 
> After a while they… they took me to the room with the Kindly Man ( _(here, there is a scratched addendum) “Kindly Man” my pristine left arse cheek, Trevelyan._ ) and he was… so nice. He took all the glass out… I had to crawl over the glass, so many times. It hurt, Dorian. I couldn’t breathe sometimes. It hurt so much. 
> 
> I can’t… I can’t talk about that right now.
> 
> They were never going to kill me, Dorian.
> 
> They wanted… They wanted to… They wanted to make an example of me. They wanted to prove that they could destroy me and… and remake me. Into them. They wanted to corrupt me. To… to convince me that I wanted what they were doing to me. 
> 
> And after a while… after a while, I did.
> 
> Maybe I still do.

_Report ends suddenly, with tears staining the bottom of the page. The ink is smudged, as if someone pushed the paper away with great haste._

_All further reports are written in another hand writing, and are significantly shorter._

* * *

It starts small, she sleeps longer, but more fitfully. She claims she no longer needs their constant attentions, and they seem content to accept this. She still visits with Dorian, spends time with Cassandra, but she no longer requires an unending watch. Cullen had insisted, Max alongside him, that she take a guard with her wherever she ventured, but that was a small price to pay for her freedom. She breathes in the crisp air whenever she pleases, hobbling slowly but successfully along the battlements.

But more often than not, she remains in her quarters, not engaging, not speaking, not acknowledging the people around her. Sometimes, Max will stand at the bottom of the ladder that leads up to her sanctuary, but he never speaks, never climbs the rungs, and perhaps if he did, things may be different. But they are worlds apart, she and her twin, and she cannot begrudge him his distance; she is doing the same thing. 

Dorian leaves her books every few days, and she devours them, because turning pages is one thing she _can_ still do, despite her still-crippled fingers. But when she has trouble moving from one page to another, or her head begins to hurt too much to focus on the words, it infuriates her beyond measure, and she retreats into her cocoon of blankets. These episodes become more and more frequent, but no one is there to notice them, and for that she is grateful. 

Evelyn knows she was enough of a burden on the Inner Circle before her captivity, that she has been little better than a child until the last few weeks, but this cold emptiness that threatens to consume her is not something she wishes the others to see. She cannot pile more onto their shoulders. And if they notice she is quieter, well… It’s all a part of healing, she supposes. 

Cullen does not come every night, not now she can sleep without the fire in the grate. He is busy, she knows, but it almost hurts that he forgets about her so easily. He still comes, but she sends him away earlier and earlier, with a knowing smile and a reminder of his work. She is so much less important than they give her credit for, and they must be reminded, sometimes. 

The Inquisition must not falter because one little girl was silly enough to get herself caught. 

It’s on nights like these that she is thankful her nails have finally grown back long enough to scratch properly. She digs them into her palms, exhaling shakily as they press sharply into her skin. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but it helps her feel something as the days drift by, merging into one. 

Evelyn Trevelyan is a ghost in Skyhold, just as she always should have been.

* * *

“I don’t know what to say to her, Dorian.”

“Just give her time, Max.”

“Blast it, Dorian! She’s my _sister_ , and she can barely look at me! She barely speaks as it is! Something is _wrong_ , Dorian. I can feel it.”

A sigh. A hand descends on his shoulder. Max wilts.

“She’s my sister.”

“I know, _amatus_ , but we must give her time to heal.”

* * *

The voices aren’t demons, she knows that much.

When they began, whispering nasty things in her ears, she thought they might have been. But hours of listening to Solas and Dorian debate over the fire in camp had not gone to waste on her, and she knew that demons did not frequently possess non-Mages. So it’s not a demon in her mind, but her own soul turning against her.

The voices aren’t demons, but they remind her of the ones she has seen in reality.

They sound like the Kindly Man, his Nevarraan soldier, all the men who laughed at her, kicked her, stripped her bare, during her captivity. They whisper depraved, horrible things in her ears, and she falls asleep most nights sobbing silently into her pillow, pleading with a Maker she isn’t sure she still believes in for a single night of peace. 

If anyone wonders about her puffy eyes and the bags beneath them, they never ask. She continues to make her way to lunch each day (she never rises early enough for the morning meal, not anymore), though it takes longer than she cares to admit. She doesn’t cry as her fumbling hands drop more food from forks than they send to her mouth, but there’s a sheen to them that goes ignored. Were it not for the insistence of the maids, she knows she’d likely forget to bathe regularly as well, but getting to the baths is a trial in and of itself, and she will not allow them to help her. 

No one else needs to see her scarred body. 

Sometimes, at night, she traces the silvery pink marks upon her skin, tears dripping down her nose, silent gasps for air the only sound in the otherwise still room. There are hundreds of them maring her flesh, making what should be smooth and only blemished by botched field healing instead a topographical map of her life. She hates the tiny ones the most, because they remind her of how her own traitorous skin healed over shards of glass, how the healers in Skyhold had to sedate her to stop her thrashing as they cut into her skin anew, pulled the fragments from her. 

She tries to ignore the fact that she keeps trying to do it again. Every glittering pane is an enticement, a reminder of the games the Kindly Man made her play, a bargain for food, for rest, for anything. Even now, she can almost feel the pinpricks that sting all the more for the salt across the floor. They are ugly, and wrong, and disgusting, and so is she. 

So is she.

* * *

“I just think---”

“Don’t think, Max.”

“But…”

“The healers report she is doing as well as can be expected. What more can we ask for?”

“I just want my sister back.”

“We all do. We all do.”

* * *

For once, she finds herself grateful that her mother had insisted, years ago, that Evelyn learn embroidery, and cross stitch, and simple mending. If Lord Trevelyan was going to teach her to wield blades, then by the Maker, Lady Trevelyan was going to teach her daughter to wield a needle with similar accuracy. As she stitches her clothes slightly tighter under the light of a tiny candle in the dead of night, Evelyn is more grateful than she would have thought possible.

It would raise too many suspicions if her clothes seemed too ill fitting, but food was a chore, something she hardly deserved after how _he_ had made her beg and debase herself for it. She chokes down food for them, sometimes, but it settles awkwardly in her stomach, and she finds herself spending sleepless nights curled in her blanket nest, nausea twisting like a knife in her gut. 

The silvery scar on her abdomen hurts all the time, and it only makes her feel sicker.

She tries, though. Despite sewing her garments tighter, she allows Josephine to gift her a small make-up kit that had recently returned from Val Royeaux with the scouts, apparently a sampling from the merchants there. The chalky powders feel strange against her skin, but when she sees how Max and Dorian smile when she wears them, she can’t stop herself putting them on every day. 

“You look better, Evie,” murmurs Max, one day as she sits in her wheeled chair in the gardens. They’ve barely spoken since her mind came back to her, and she only just manages to remember that this simple phrase should make her smile, instead of reminding her of how much _worse_ she seems to feel every day. “Thank you,” she says softly, eyes falling to focus on the herbs before her. Her fingers, her entire hands, they still shake as she tries to pot the plants, but it helps a little to feel more useful. 

Until her chair knocks over the pot as she tries to turn. Mother Giselle is there in an instant, helping the herbalist tidy up, and Evelyn is glad she put on Josephine’s gifts today, because she knows her face is completely devoid of colour. Morrigan, an answering angel, carefully maneuvers her out of the gardens, saying not a word until they arrive at Evelyn’s door.

“Inquisitor,” begins the witch, a strangely tentative note in the usually confident woman’s tone. Evelyn simply smiles serenely. 

“All is well, Morrigan, but thank you for your concern. Scout, if you could assist?” The guard by her door eases his arm around Evelyn’s back, under her shoulders, and helps her rise. She can move, slowly, but stairs are difficult without assistance. She does not look back, and misses Morrigan’s furrowed brow, and how the witch frowns slightly. 

When she arrives in her quarters and pulls herself up to her bed, she waits until the guard is gone before she allows herself to dissolve into tears. She has convinced everyone else she is getting better, and that is good enough for her.

* * *

It’s too much.

The voices in her ears, the pain beneath her skin, it’s all more than she can bare. 

She is losing more of herself with every passing day. 

She is not getting any better.

* * * 

The air is cool around her, a touch of frost carried from the mountains surrounding them. She shivers, tears cold against her cheeks, and looks out over the valley. It truly is beautiful, and perhaps there is no better place to die.

She’s tried, and she knows it. But it’s been months, and months, and she’s only just been able to get her blades back. But they feel unfamiliar, almost a year of disuse making them awkward in her bastardised hands. She cannot move with the same grace, the same stealth, that she used to, and even in training she is something of a liability.

She’s a burden to everyone, she sees that more clearly now. 

The Kindly Man had tried to show her, but she had been resistant, and so he crafted her to his own uses instead. But she sees now; she understands. 

The Inquisition will be better able to defeat Corypheus without their upper echelons constantly hovering over a bird with a broken wing. They have not realised that she is irreparably damaged, that she has gone beyond what is worth fixing. Were she anything else, a piece of armour or a damaged blade, they would have torn her apart and used her for something new, but she is unfortunately, unforgettably, human, and has been torn apart too often to be put back together properly.

A thought spared for Cullen pushes her a step back, but then two steps forward. 

Cullen.

Flashes of beautiful smiles, of bright eyes and blonde hair, consume her, and she lets out a sob, desperately burying her face in the fur mantle she has stolen from him. It still smells like him, elfroot and ink and leather, and tears burn cold against her skin, the wind stealing even their tiny warmth from her. She is cold to her very core, her very soul, and it hurts, cracks, splinters, as she lets out another sob. 

The pain is so cold, so empty.

Honnleath is her favourite memory, and she clings to that, the ghost of warmth, as she climbs the battlements towards the broken wall of the fortress. She had thought of simply going through the crenels, but it seemed better to go from the place that made her feel most comfortable; that broken place that didn’t seem important enough to repair quite yet. 

The cold wind burns her fingers white-hot, white-cold?, and she shivers, every step an effort as her body begins to succumb to the familiar numbness. She supposes it was silly to come out in nothing but Cullen’s mantle and her sleeping shift, not even bothering with slippers to keep away the chill, but they are in the middle of a war, and clothes lost with a dead woman are no good to the living. Above all else, Evelyn is at least glad she has maintained some sense of practicality. 

Stones cut into her bare feet, and she winces, but the pain is a comfortable reminder that soon it’ll all be over. Her head is swimming, thoughts raging, and tears streaming, and she feels like a hurricane, all mixed up, confused and twisted. Her soul is a hurricane, she thinks bitterly, twisted and broken and all, all wrong.

This is the best thing for everyone.

In the depths of her mind, she knows that she had been wrong to lie to everyone. But it started with such good intentions. She remembers, clearly, the day that she told Cullen she was tired, that she just wanted to sleep, and didn’t he have paperwork that he had been neglecting? The guilty flicker in his eyes had been enough. 

She knows, believes ardently, that she has become too much of a burden for the Inquisition. 

Every member of the Inner Circle had been ignoring their duties to play nursemaid to her, and despite their reassurances that things were being taken care of… She had encouraged Dorian to go play chess with him, later, and had asked Josephine if Vivienne had spoken to her about the incoming dignitaries more frequently. Leliana was not so easily distracted, but Sera had been more than willing to play more pranks, keeping the Spymaster busier and busier. 

She had convinced them, convinced _herself_ , that she was getting better, that she did not need constant monitoring. Perhaps that was true. A sharp chuckle cuts through the quiet of the night. She _doesn’t_ need constant monitoring. She simply wants to sleep. 

There is an emptiness in her gut, in her heart, that hasn’t been filled since she woke up that day, so long ago now. There is a dense fog in her mind, clouding her thoughts, and her mind feels as though it has been filled with unspun wool. This is for the best. She knows this is for the best.

She is not worth their tears, their sorrow, and she has told them as much in her note. There will be no tears for Evelyn Trevelyan. She is not worthy of them, and she knows this much. It’s like the Kindly Man said, she is a burden, a nuisance, unworthy. 

Another deep inhale, and she feels herself surrounded by Cullen, Cullen, _Cullen_ , his scent, his warmth, simply him. He says she is not a burden, and she wishes she could believe him. She is glad he left his mantle behind last time he visited, because she would have been sad to have not had his warmth before she falls. 

Before she falls.

Before she falls. 

She takes a tentative step forward, swaying in the gusts pulling down from the mountains. Her tears are crystallising into ice on the fur of Cullen’s mantle, and she realises it cannot come with her. That is enough to send her into a broken fit of sobs, louder than she intends them to be. But she cannot take this comfort with her, not when it will serve him better here than it would her broken corpse. With shaking fingers, she unclasps the chain that holds the mantle and cloak in place, hanging it neatly over one of the stone barriers. 

It’s so soft, so well-worn and loved, just like Cullen, and she finds herself praying to the Maker she feels has abandoned her that he finds someone warm, and loving, and soft, someone that he can build a family with once Corypheus is gone. She wishes she could have been that person. 

Before her captivity, she could have been.

Her heart clenches, nails digging into her palms, and she turns away from Skyhold, from _home_ , and steps into nothingness.

* * *

“No!”

Cullen’s hands find Evelyn’s wrist as she starts to fall, and he all but yelps as her weight plummets forward, off the edge of the broken battlement. It is only his determination that holds them in place as he wrenches her back. She looks serene, but as he pulls her onto solid ground again, her face crumbles.

“Let me go,” she whispers, voice more broken than he has heard it in months. She struggles, more strength in her than he could have expected, but he holds fast. “Never,” he murmurs, pulling her into the tight circle of his embrace. 

The power of his wrench sends her stumbling into him, and both of them fall back to the ground. He doesn’t let go, simply pulls her into his lap, into his arms, and a dam bursts in both of them.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispers haltingly into her hair, clutching at her like a child. Hot tears drip from his cheeks to her locks as he clings to her. Her breathing is his lifeline, and he cannot fight this world without her by his side. Seeing her walking along the battlements, as near to unclothed as is possible, had sent him into a panic. There was no time to go find anyone else, and he had launched himself from his desk, running full out towards his heart.

Just in time.

“Please, Evelyn,” his voice breaks on her name, and hitches in a choked sob. “I can’t lose you. Please don’t leave me, Evie.” He sounds like a child, plaintive and almost reproachful. He can feel a familiar soft cloak behind him, and tugs it off of the ledge. It’s awkward work, but he wraps it around her still-too-small form and holds her close to him. He can feel hot tears soaking into his tunic, can hear her quiet sobs, and he brushes a hand over her hair. “I love you, Evelyn. Please, _talk to me_. Let me help you.”

A broken howl is smothered by his shirt, but he holds her tighter nonetheless. “I… I’m so broken,” she whispers, her fingers finally ( _finally_ ) gripping his tunic, and he simply holds her. “I feel so empty, Cullen. I feel so… so broken. There’s… I can’t…” Her breathing becomes erratic and he hushes her, rubbing comforting circles into her back. 

“I know, Evie. I know. Come on, come with me. Let’s get you warmed up.”

He allows her to move from his lap, but keeps a hand on her shoulder as he stands. She goes to do the same and he shakes his head. “Let me take care of you,” he whispers, bending to pick her up. She is still wrapped in his cloak, and her head lolls into the fur mantle. She is lighter than he recalls her being last time he carried her, and worry grasps his heart like a vice. How has he missed her falling apart right in front of him? “Let me help you, Evelyn. Please.”

The silence is endless as he carries her back to his quarters. He shakes his head at the sentry near the door, and the man knows that no word of this can leave the three of them. He follows them in, locking the other two doors as Cullen begins to help Evelyn up the ladder to his sleeping quarters.

“Have two trays of food sent to my office at meal times for the next few days,” he says, eyes on the young man who is about to leave. “Inform Josephine, Leliana, and anyone who asks, that Inquisitor Evelyn has taken ill and is recuperating with me. We are _not_ to be disturbed, unless there is an emergency.”

He pauses.

“Have Inquisitor Maxwell meet me in my office after the eighth bell. My office will remain locked until this situation is dealt with. And ser?” Cullen fixes the man with a look that cuts deep. “If any word of what transpired tonight gets out, it _will_ be dealt with. Do we have an understanding?”

The sentry nods and scurries out the door towards the kitchens. Cullen locks it behind him, and slowly makes his way up to Evelyn.

* * *

Of all the things Cullen expects when he reaches his quarters, Evelyn Trevelyan wearing nothing but the skin the Maker had given her is certainly not one of them. He jolts, stuttering, and her face falls even further (he had not thought it possible).

“I… I’m sorry,” she whispers, eyes brimming with tears again. “I just… I thought you… I just want to… I want to _feel_ something, Cullen.” She sounds so broken that he is across the room in a moment, pressing his hand against her cheek, brushing away her tears.

And, by the Maker, she’s beautiful. He has never seen her like this before they had taken her from him, and the rescue did not endear itself to thoughts of any nature except healing, but despite everything, in this moment, he has never seen a woman more beautiful than Evelyn Trevelyan. His heart skips a beat, and he feels an uncomfortable rush of blood to his groin. 

“Evie… You’re… You’re… _perfect_ ,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against hers. “But this… This wouldn’t be… This isn’t how…” He can’t form sentences properly, not with her pressing herself against him, tears trickling down her cold cheeks. “I’m so cold,” she whimpers, and he can tell, pebbled nipples pressing against him through the rough material of his tunic. He suppresses a groan as she slots herself against him perfectly.

“Please,” she whispers again. “I’m so _cold_ , Cullen. Inside. Everywhere. I need… I need to feel… I need you, Cullen. I can’t be alone.”

Her breathy begging breaks him, and he is ashamed, but he can’t control himself, not with her there before him, pleading with him to help her. He knows all too well the cold she describes, remembers how it nearly consumed him in Kinloch, and afterwards. Who is he to deny her? He cups her cheeks with his hands and kisses her, teeth clacking together. It’s hot, and wet, and messy, and _perfect_ and he is glad he had forgone his gloves when he ran out to grab her, because her skin is soft and perfect beneath his fingers. 

A breath, and he begins trailing kisses across her cheeks. Her gasping whimpers are more than he can bare as he kisses away her tears. “I’ll keep you warm,” he murmurs. “I’ll help you feel. I promise, Evie. I’ll always help you.” 

He can’t stop kissing her, can’t stop his hands trailing across her cold body, desperate to warm her. He came so close to losing her again, losing her _forever_ and he is desperate to map every inch of her. As his fingers brush against her hip and she whines loudly, he knows his love for her will never fade. 

There’s a fire in his veins as he kisses down her neck, teeth grazing her pulse point. “You’re alive, Evelyn,” and he bites gently at her throat to prove it to her. Her answering whimper is convincing enough. He carefully presses her back, and she looks as though she’s about to cry as he pulls his mouth away from her. “Hush,” he murmurs, brushing a rogue piece of hair from her eyes. “No more tears, my love. I’ve got you. I have you, Evelyn. It’s alright.” 

And they are moving, backwards, towards his bed. The backs of her legs hit the frame and she falls back. He crawls on top of her, returning his mouth to her throat and collar. She is squirming beneath him, breathy gasps and moans breaking the otherwise still air, and he lets out a hum of contentment before he latches onto one rosy nipple.

Her breasts, like the rest of her, are absolutely perfect, scars and all. He thumbs across the other nipple, pleased as he feels it immediately respond to his touch, and she is so responsive that he may die before he can bury himself in her. Her back arches as he sucks hard, and her hips are rolling unconsciously. She is all soft cries and desperate whines, and he loves bringing her joy as he kneads her breast. 

(She has been so devoid of pleasure, of happiness, for so long that he feels a rush of smugness that it’s _his_ touch that brings her back to life. Later, he might regret that feeling, but for now…)

“Tell me, Evie,” he murmurs, laving at her nipple with his tongue. “Do you like it when I touch you?” She nods vigorously, more energy in her as his touches warm up her body. “Tell me,” and his tone is so commanding that she cannot help but obey.

“I… I like it when you kiss me,” she whispers, cheeks flushing, eyes bright. “It… I can _feel_.” She is drunk off of something, probably the adrenaline of the near-death fall, of his pulling her back, of being pressed into his bed by his much-larger frame, and he can’t bring himself to stop, though he knows he should. She is needy and beautiful beneath him, and he should stop, he should stop, he should stop, but then he nips at her nipple again and she strains beneath him, gasping for air.

“I bet I could make you come just sucking on your nipples, couldn’t I, Evelyn?” She whimpers as he speaks, her cheeks bright red. He knows her well enough to know that his words embarrass her, and he loves it, loves seeing her finally reacting, seeing her _feel_. “You like that, don’t you? When I tell you all the filthy things I want to do to you?” And she nods again, almost bashfully this time. “I’m going to make you feel, Evelyn. I’m going to take care of you.”

And he does, fingers ghosting across her stomach reverently, taking time to map every inch of her skin. His fingers brush against the large scar across her abdomen, ignoring the shudder as he recalls her impaled upon the staff, pushing away the anger he feels towards those who hurt her. Instead, he peppers her body with hot, wet kisses until she is writhing beneath him, incoherent begging toppling from her lips. He is still clothed, and when he pushes himself up to remove his tunic, her eyes widen, pupils blown with lust. “You’re still here,” he whispers, pressing his face into her neck, taking a moment to breathe her in. “You’re still here, with me. Oh Maker, you’re here. You’re here. You’re home.”

It becomes his mantra as he presses his lips to hers again, settling in between her thighs carefully. The brush of his trousers against her cunt is almost too much, and she wails, rubbing herself openly against him. She’s absolutely soaked, and he moans as she presses her hot core against him. “Maker, Evie…,” he pants, fisting the sheets beside her. “You’re… you’re perfect.”

This is not how he imagined their first time together. He had imagined courting her properly, had imagined a beautiful meal and taking his time to learn every part of her, bringing her pleasure constantly until she was nothing more than a sweaty, gorgeous, writhing mess beneath him. He imagined her happy, and joyous, and love-drunk. He never imagined her broken, fractured, as damaged as he is. 

He presses his lips to every part of her, brushing his fingers against the puckered scars that litter her skin, despite the best efforts of the healers. She moves to cover them, and he simply nudges her hands away, worshiping every inch of her, paying special attention to the smallest scars, the ones formed as skin grew over shards of glass that her torturers had not bothered to remove, and the largest, the one that nearly killed her. His fingers brush the most sensitive part of her and she whines, high and reedy, eyes glassy. He remembers when they had to hold her down to remove the glass. The scars are a reminder of his failure, and he lavishes them with love, trying to make up for all his mistakes.

It’s only moments to divest him of his trousers and smalls, and his cock is brushing against her entrance, and maker, she’s so hot and slick and wet that he could slide into her without any preamble. He groans, rubbing his cock between her folds, his head brushing her pearl. She wails again, rutting against him shamelessly. “Cullen,” she whimpers. “Cullen, _please_. Cullen, Cullen, _Cullen_.”

Her voice does him in, and he slides into her slowly, eyes widening as he meets a thin resistance. She whimpers, and jerks her hips, and gives a quiet cry of pain as she forces him to break her barrier. Before he can comment, before he can say a single thing, she is rolling her hips and whispering his name again, breathy and desperate, tears streaking her cheeks. He groans, her cunt tight around him, and thrusts into her. She howls, and he moves his hand down to brush against her pearl once, twice, and she’s tightening around him, and she feels like a vice, and, and

_Fuck._

She is like liquid silk around him as she comes, body arching, breasts pressed skyward. There has never been a more beautiful sight in all of history than Evelyn Trevelyan when he makes her come, of this Cullen is absolutely certain. He groans, rolling his hips against her as she clings to him. She’s so hot, so wet, so perfect, and, _Maker_ , Maker, Maker, she is everything.

“Oh, fuck… Evelyn… Evie, _fuck_.” His hips jerk once, twice, and he buries himself deep inside of her cunt, spending himself deep into her belly, almost embarrassed by how quickly she brings him undone. She whimpers, thrusting against him again, and as soon as his thumb brushes against her, she is coming again, harder this time, twisting beneath him, and there will _never_ be a more erotic sight than this woman.

“Mine,” he murmurs, sliding out of her in a mix of blood, and spend, and her own beautiful juices. She is flushed beneath him, her short hair mussed and tears in her eyes. He kisses her cheeks gently. “I love you, Evelyn. I love you, so desperately.” 

“I… I love you,” she whispers back, curling into his embrace as he lays beside her. He shifts slightly, tugging the blankets from beneath them to he can cover them instead. She rests her head against his shoulder, and he presses a kiss against her forehead. 

“Stay,” he commands, and she nods sleepily. “You’ll stay here, for now. Until… Until you’re ready.” And she nods again, nestling further into his embrace. 

Perhaps, he considers, this is what he should have done all along; brought her here, to somewhere safe, but new, somewhere where she could discover who she is now, rather than who she had been before. He lets these thoughts go as she tentatively places a hand across him. “Sleep, Evie. I’ll keep you safe.” 

She sleeps, and he lays awake a long time, simply watching her breathe.

* * *


End file.
